  In this article, we investigate the next-to-leading order contribution of the
higher-twist Feynman diagrams to the large-$p_T$ inclusive pion production
cross section in proton-proton collisions and present the general formulae for
the higher-twist differential cross sections in the case of the running
coupling and frozen coupling approaches. We compared the resummed
next-to-leading order higher-twist cross sections with the ones obtained in the
framework of the frozen coupling approach and leading-twist cross section. The
structure of infrared renormalon singularities of the higher twist subprocess
cross section and it's resummed expression (the Borel sum) are found. It is
shown that the resummed result depends on the choice of the meson wave
functions used in the calculations. We discuss the phenomenological
consequences of possible higher-twist contributions to the meson production in
proton-proton collisions in next-to-leading order at RHIC.
