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 Editorials | Issues | August 2007 
Mexico-US Border Trucking Full Of Potholes
 Nick Carey - Reuters
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| | A U.S. Border Patrol agent monitors heavy trucks with a canine at a border crossing in Laredo, Texas. (Reuters/Ricardo Segovia) |
Indianapolis - When it comes to getting goods across the U.S.-Mexican border by truck, Steve Russell doesn't mince his words about the current system.
"It's like the Middle Ages," the chief executive of long-haul trucking firm Celadon Group Inc. said in a recent interview at his Indianapolis headquarters. "The system adds a day to any haul."
Russell founded the company in 1985 and Indianapolis geographically represents a key highway interchange that serves Celadon's north-south operations, with most of its business running between the United States, Canada and Mexico.
Like other truck companies, Celadon moves freight as fast as it can, which works smoothly except when it comes to getting goods in and out of Mexico, Russell said.
This is because U.S.-licensed trucks may not enter Mexico and Mexican trucks may not enter the United States.
"This makes no sense in an age of globalized trade," Russell said.
The U.S.-Mexican border has been closed to long-haul truck traffic since 1982, with the exception of drayage services.
Trailers going to Mexico or the U.S. are dropped off near the border and picked up by drayage trucks which have a license to operate a few miles inside the border on both sides. The trailers are taken over the border and parked for pickup. In 2006, some 8 million truck loads crossed the border this way.
A U.S. government test project now aims to change all this by allowing some Mexican drivers to deliver goods to U.S. destinations, in line with what officials say are long-delayed obligations of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which went into effect in 1994.
But opponents include labor unions, road safety advocates and a number of local and national politicians.
They say the administration of President George W. Bush has not done enough to address safety issues arising from differences in truck regulations between the two countries, specifically: claims that Mexican trucks are unsafe, that Mexican drivers are not subject to the same drug tests as U.S. drivers, and that the Mexican trucking industry in general is corrupt.
"We feel that the Mexican system of regulating the trucking industry is totally incompatible with the U.S. system," said U.S. Democratic Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon, whose amendment to a transportation budget bill in late July may delay funding for the project by a year. "If the cross-border project went ahead it would jeopardize the safety of the American public," DeFazio told Reuters in an interview.
A Senate vote on funding the test project has yet to take place. But a vote to delay funding is seen likely.
POLITICAL FOOTBALL AT THE BORDER
Trucking officials like Russell or Larry Woolson, Chairman of the Arizona Trucking Association, welcome the test idea.
"Anything that will lubricate the wheels of global trade is good news," Woolson said.
The U.S. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, in charge of the project, says Mexican truck companies will be held to more stringent standards than their U.S. counterparts and that to meet NAFTA obligations the test must go ahead.
FMCSA spokeswoman Melissa DeLaney said the goal is to ease trade and increase competition for cross-border transport. A similar arrangement has existed on the U.S.-Canadian border for decades, she said.
Jackie Gillan, vice president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, said that comparison was misleading.
"The regulatory environment of the United States is much, much closer to that of Canada than it is to the environment in Mexico," she said. "It's not an apples to apples comparison, it's apples to oranges."
Union opposition focuses on safety. But labor groups also fear that opening up the border will lead to lower-paid Mexican drivers taking over U.S. trucking jobs and add to outsourcing of U.S. manufacturing jobs to non-unionized Mexican firms.
"Job security is an issue for us," said Leslie Miller, a spokeswoman for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
DeFazio said that opening the border will lead to dangerous Mexican trucks and truckers - many of whom he claims take stimulant drugs to stay awake for days on end to drive - and pose a "safety risk to U.S. families and school buses."
"While Mexico is a country where corruption is rife and there is no respect for the rule of law or regulation, we will not consider backing this project," DeFazio said.
Arizona Trucking Association's Woolson disagreed. "All we get is a stereotype of an unsafe, drugged-out Mexican trucker," he said. "This isn't debate, it's ludicrous hysteria." |
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