redo Jump to...
print Print...
(by Julie Watson, YahooNews.com) SAN DIEGO (AP) — The first Mexican carrier is set to roll into the U.S. interior within days, but the Teamsters union and two California congressmen haven’t given up on stopping the cross-border trucking program that had been stalled for years by safety concerns and political wrangling.
U.S. Reps. Duncan Hunter and Bob Filner joined Teamsters Union* President James Hoffa at the border Wednesday to take a bipartisan stand against the pilot project that will allow approved Mexican trucks to come deep into the United States. The first one will enter Texas on Friday. [*In 2005 the union had 1.4 million members; the majority of its members are truck drivers.]
Hunter is a San Diego-area Republican, while Filner is a Democrat whose district includes California’s border with Mexico. They were surrounded at a news conference by more than 75 union members from at least five states.
Allowing Mexican trucking companies to deliver goods rather than transfer them to U.S. haulers at the border will put American jobs and highway safety at risk, they said.
“We’re literally taking good jobs here in America and passing them over the line to Mexico,” Hunter told the crowd, many holding signs reading “NAFTA kills” and “Stop the war on workers.”
Washington on Friday [Oct. 14] approved the first Mexican trucking company, Transportes Olympic, nearly two decades after the hotly contested provision of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement set off lawsuits and a costly trade dispute between the neighboring countries.
Transportes Olympic’s long-haul truck cross[ed] the border Friday [Oct. 21] at Laredo, Texas, and head about 450 miles north to Garland, Texas, to deliver industrial equipment, said Guillermo Perez, the transport manager at the firm in the industrial Monterrey suburb of Apodaca, about two hours south of Laredo.
He dismissed claims that Mexican trucking companies and their drivers do not meet U.S. safety standards. He said his company has a strict, random drug testing policy for its 61 drivers and it has bought more than a dozen trucks in the past two years.
U.S. inspectors [checked the trucks Thursday] and will also have a database on truckers who have been approved by the U.S. Department of Transportation, Perez said.
“It’s a really controlled program. There’s no way to avoid the law,” he said. “We are really prepared for this. It’s not weird for me that some (U.S. trucking) companies are willing to shut it down because now they have to compete with us.”
Perez declined to reveal how much his drivers earn.
The company was approved under the pilot program in 2009 before President Barack Obama’s administration cancelled it. Mexico retaliated by placing tariffs on 99 agricultural products worth more than $2 billion annually.
Mexico cut the tariffs in half this summer after Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon approved an inspection and monitoring program for the companies that had been approved in 2009. The Mexican government has vowed to lift the rest once the truck head[ed] out of the border zone Friday.
“We’re really excited,” Perez said. “Now we can provide door-to-door service, so it’s about a 15 percent savings for companies.”
Opponents say the fight isn’t over.
Hunter has co-authored a bill sponsored by U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., that would stop the pilot program in three years and require Congress to vote on the issue again.
“We hope we can stop this before we have a disaster,” Filner said.
Criminal activity has been a problem for years even within the U.S. government’s strictest trusted carrier programs. Drug trafficking organizations have smuggled tons of drugs inside trucks driven by approved truckers coming from inspected and certified facilities inside Mexico.
Todd Spencer, the executive vice president of the Independent Drivers Association, which represents small independent trucking businesses, said 100,000 trucking jobs will be lost. Proponents say it will spur economic growth as companies save millions by sending the goods door-to-door.
“We certainly hope that it cannot be stopped,” said James Clark, director of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Mexico Business Center. “The U.S. has been in violation of the NAFTA agreement ever since the beginning of the trucking issue. Mexican trucks have every right to come into the U.S. under NAFTA as long as the trucks are fully inspected to U.S. standards and the drivers speak English.”
Supporters say especially strict safeguards have been implemented: Electronic devices will track the routes drivers take, how long they drive and how long they rest. Participating drivers must undergo national security and criminal background checks, and inspectors will administer oral English-proficiency exams.
Three U.S. trucking companies have been given the green light under the program to drive into Mexico, according to the Mexican government. But Hoffa said American truckers don’t want to drive into Mexico because of the country’s violent crime problem.
About 70 percent of goods from the $4 billion trade between the two nations are transported by land, according to the Mexican government.
Copyright ©2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. Reprinted here for educational purposes only. The information contained in this AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without the prior written authority of the Associated Press. Visit news.yahoo.com/1st-mexican-truck-enter-us-interior-within-days-184747565.html for the original post.
Questions
1. What is NAFTA?
2. List the reasons various leaders/groups are opposed to the provision under NAFTA that allows Mexican trucks to enter the U.S. to make deliveries.
3. List the reasons supporters give for saying cross-border deliveries allowed under the NAFTA agreement should begin.
4. a) What percent of goods sold between the U.S. and Mexico are transported by land?
b) Until the NAFTA cross-border delivery provision took effect, how did Mexican companies get their goods to their U.S. customers? (NOTE: The article provides no information about how U.S. companies get their products to their Mexican customers.)
5. When the U.S. cancelled a pilot program in 2009 to allow cross-border deliveries, what did the Mexican government do in response?
6. How will the U.S. Department of Transportation assure the safety and reliability of the Mexican trucks/drivers coming into the U.S.?
7. Although they will now be permitted to do so, why does Teamsters Union president Jimmy Hoffa say U.S. truckers don’t want to deliver into Mexico?
8. a) Supporters say cross-border deliveries will save U.S. companies 15%. However, the article does not provide information on the cost to taxpayers for a government department dedicated to monitoring and maintaining the Mexican trucking companies and drivers. Do you think this program will save U.S. taxpayers money in the long-run?
b) Mexican trucking company manager Guillermo Perez says that his company has a random drug testing policy for its drivers. Should the U.S. rely on Mexican companies to test and assure the safety of their drivers? Should their drivers be required to obtain a U.S. truck drivers license, or otherwise prove they know all of our traffic safety regulations and laws? Explain your answer.
9. Do you support or oppose the idea of cross-border deliveries (Mexico to U.S., and U.S. to Mexico)? Explain your answer.
Background
NAFTA:
The North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA is an agreement signed by the governments of Canada, Mexico, and the United States, creating a trilateral trade bloc in North America. The agreement came into force on January 1, 1994.
The goal of NAFTA was to eliminate barriers to trade and investment between the US, Canada and Mexico. The implementation of NAFTA on January 1, 1994 brought the immediate elimination of tariffs on more than one-half of U.S. imports from Mexico and more than one-third of U.S. exports to Mexico. Within 10 years of the implementation of the agreement, all US-Mexico tariffs would be eliminated except for some U.S. agricultural exports to Mexico that were to be phased out within 15 years. Most U.S.-Canada trade was already duty free. NAFTA also seeks to eliminate non-tariff trade barriers.
Background on U.S./Mexico trucking:
- NAFTA stipulates unrestricted shipping between North American countries. Trucks from neighbor nations were to be given access to border states by 1995, and regionwide by 2000. Canadian and U.S. trucks already deliver to cross-border destinations in Canada and the United States, but Mexican trucks have been excluded due to safety concerns.
- [In 1995, the U.S. government] refused to open U.S. highways to Mexican trucks. Mexico appealed to a NAFTA arbitration panel, which ruled in 2001 that the U.S. must allow Mexican trucks to enter. We have not complied. Critics say the U.S. stance undermines NAFTA and discourages other nations from honoring trade agreements.
- NAFTA allows trucks from any North American country to deliver and pick up goods within the borders of neighboring nations, but point-to-point shipping on foreign soil is prohibited. For example, a Mexican truck can deliver a shipment from Mexico within the United States and return with goods to sell in Mexico, but it cannot pick up and then deliver shipments within the United States. The same rules apply for U.S. and Canadian vehicles.
- Currently, Mexican trucks are required to drop off U.S.-bound shipments within the immediate border zone. This is generally 25 miles from the international border, although the area is larger in Arizona. Likewise, U.S. trucks must drop off shipments in Mexico shortly after crossing the border.
- Since trucking firms don’t want expensive, long-haul tractor trailers idling on the border, cartage companies often pick up shipments and drop them off on the other side of the border, for a fee. Cartage vehicles are generally older, and may emit more pollutants, causing [a problem for environmentalists].
- The busiest point of entry on the southern border is in Laredo, Texas, where the [majority] of U.S.-bound trucks pass. Most produce from Mexico enters the United States via Nogales, Arizona, causing seasonal fluctuations in border traffic that have led to lengthy delays. Other major entry points are El Paso, Texas and San Diego, California. (from knowledge.wpcarey.asu.edu]
Daily “Answers” emails are provided for Daily News Articles, Tuesday’s World Events and Friday’s News Quiz.
