New visas paused for commercial truck drivers, Rubio says

The federal government will pause issuing new visas for commercial truck drivers, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday night. Why it matters: The trucking industry is, by some estimates, short tens of thousands of drivers already.What they're saying: "The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on U.S. roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers," Rubio said in a post on X.By the numbers: Foreign-born truckers are a huge part of the industry.Truckstop trade group NATSO, citing government data, said last year that some 18% of working drivers were immigrants. Rubio's order doesn't necessarily endanger their status immediately, but could prevent new drivers from coming in or existing drivers from renewing. Between the lines: In April, President Trump signed an executive order requiring the Department of Transportation to ensure drivers who couldn't demonstrate proficiency in English were taken off the road.The English requirement was already a federal regulation, but hadn't been strictly enforced since 2016.Those rules generally require truck drivers to speak and read English well enough to have a conversation, read signs, answer questions and write reports.The intrigue: The trucker shortage has, in past, been cited as a contributing factor to rising inflation, given the lack of enough drivers to move goods.As Axios Pro Deals' Colin Campbell notes, a years-long freight recession has been exacerbated by wage pressures as well. What to watch: It wasn't clear from Rubio's post how long the pause would last.The current fiscal year, to which visa caps are usually tied, ends Sept. 30.Go deeper: Trump admin vetting 55M U.S. visa holders for potential violations

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