Chicago Tribune
It typically takes three trucks to haul a load of cargo from Mexico to Chicago. The first one carries it into the U.S., where the load is transferred to a second Mexican truck, which is allowed to operate only within 25 miles of the border. That truck shuttles the goods to an American-owned truck, within that 25-mile border zone, that will deliver it to the heartland.
That routine applies to all but one carrier — Transportes Olympic, of Monterrey, Mexico — which this month became the first Mexican trucking company to receive a permit to carry cargo all the way to its U.S. destination. By year’s end, the U.S. Department of Transportation plans to issue 100 such permits.
Congress wants to put the brakes on this pilot program. Last week, the Senate voted 75-23 to strip program funding from next year’s transportation spending bill. In May, the House vote 411-3 to do the same.
Mexican trucks were supposed to be granted free access to U.S. highways under the North American Free Trade Agreement, which went into effect in 1994, but the Teamsters didn’t like the idea of foreign competition. Then-President Bill Clinton obliged by restricting the trucks to a transfer zone close to the border, a clear violation of NAFTA.
Read more
Loading ...
Readers Reponses