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 Editorials | July 2007 
NAFTA Truck Delay Insulting to Mexico
 San Antonio Express-News
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A provision of the North American Free Trade Agreement allows Mexican trucks to carry goods into the United States and American trucks to do so in Mexico.
The provision was to have gone into effect in 2000. Challenges by environmentalists and safety advocates, joined by union interests, delayed implementation of the provision.
Ever since, the trucking provision has been in a state of legal and legislative limbo.
Mexican trucks have been bottled up within 25 miles of the border, forced to offload their cargoes to American trucks, adding time and expense to deliveries to U.S. markets. And while Mexican trucks aren't coming north, U.S. trucks aren't going south either.
Seven years ago, opponents raised some legitimate environmental and safety issues. The Bush administration, working with the Mexican government, has addressed those concerns. The result was a one-year test plan that was supposed to begin in April.
The test plan would authorize the trucks of 100 Mexican companies to deliver their cargoes in the United States — after comprehensive safety audits by U.S. inspectors, repeat inspections, driver background checks and certification of insurance by U.S.-licensed firms. One hundred American firms would also be authorized to carry their cargoes into Mexico.
Yet while our northern border has long been open to two-way trucking, the Teamsters won't countenance any Mexican truckers on American roads.
And their allies in the House have successfully passed a measure to delay the test program until November 2008 at the earliest on the flimsy notion that Mexican trucks — having been inspected by the U.S. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration — still won't meet U.S. safety standards.
This double standard is appalling and doesn't go unnoticed south of the border. The Senate should block the move.
If members of Congress have concerns about the test program, they can seek a reduction in the number of trucks participating, a shortened test period or a termination of the test if some dangerous flaw is demonstrated. That's the purpose of the test period.
But the continuous and disingenuous delay of even a limited test lays bare the obvious insult to Mexico.
It's an affront that violates U.S. treaty obligations and hurts American businesses and consumers. |
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