Although we are well-positioned for growth in 2018, the abundant supply of natural gas in the United States has made certain unregulated coal-burning power plants less competitive. As a result, we expect to see a reduction in coal shipments to one key power plant on our network in 2018. With that said, we believe that plentiful natural gas and the resulting opportunity to grow our chemicals franchise will more than offset any reduction to our coal carloads.
We also acknowledge that the weakness in the Mexican peso seen in 2016 and 2017 has been a contributing headwind to growth in our Mexico intermodal franchise.
Although we expect our intermodal business in Mexico to grow in 2018, we remain conscientious of the possibility of continued impacts in future years.
Lastly, we are monitoring North American Free Trade Agreement renegotiations, and are hopeful that the result will be a trilateral agreement to modernize the 23-year-old agreement that has resulted in a $425 billion increase in trade between the US and Mexico.
We see firsthand the importance of trade between these two countries, as export grain is our largest southbound cross-border commodity. Certainly, if the US would like to make progress toward closing the $63 billion trade deficit with Mexico, look no further than the opportunity to export refined products, LPGs, and plastics into Mexico.
We remain optimistic about the future of domestic and cross-border business.