U.S Business fed up with Obama Administration’s inaction on Mexican Trucks

U.S Business fed up with Obama Administration’s inaction on Mexican Trucks

Posted on Aug 4, 2009 in Cross Border Program, NAFTA by PMC Comments Off

U.S. business groups are growing increasingly frustrated with President Barack Obama’s failure to resolve a cross-border trucking dispute with Mexico they say has threatened thousands of American jobs.

“We’ve got companies that are really concerned,” said Frank Vargo, vice president for international economic affairs at the National Association of Manufacturers.

“Our calculation is that we’ve got 15,000 jobs at risk and the longer this goes on, the more likely it is that Mexican buyers are shifting suppliers,” Vargo said.

U.S. manufacturers hold out hope Obama’s meeting early next week in Guadalajara with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper could set the stage for action in Congress later this year.

Representative Kevin Brady, a Texas Republican who wrote Obama in March to urge quick action on the issue, said he found it unimaginable that Obama would go to Mexico without some positive news for Calderon.

“The president going to Mexico and not trying to resolve the trucking dispute would be like going to the G20 and ignoring the financial crisis,” Brady said.

“This is a very real dispute. The clock is ticking and there’s a lot of American farmers and manufacturers that are paying a pretty steep price,” he said.

In the meantime, U.S. paper producers, potato farmers, grape growers and other businesses are suffering lost sales because of the duties Mexico imposed, Mulder said.

UNFULFILLED NAFTA COMMITMENT

Calderon’s administration took the move after Obama signed a 2009 spending bill that canceled a pilot program allowing Mexican trucks to operate beyond a 25-mile (40-km) commercial zone along the U.S. border with its southern neighbor.

The program was designed by the Bush administration to make good on a much-delayed U.S. commitment in the North American Free Trade Agreement to open its roads to Mexican trucks.

Congress killed the program because of what it called safety concerns, but Mexico said correctly said the move was really just disguised protectionism enacted on behalf of the powerful U.S. Teamsters union.

U.S. Trade Representative speaks out

In a reply to a letter sent by a Congressional stooge of OOIDA demanding answers concerning the legitimate tariff’s Mexico placed when the Pilot Program was canceled, USTR Kirk responded the best way to settle the situation was to open the border as we agreed. The tariff’s would go away.

When asked if his office was considering court actions against the tariff, Kirk responded saying the tariff’s might be lowered, but they would still be in place.

OOIDA still pushing debunked falsehoods

On todays, “LANDLINENOW” program, Mark Reddig continued to push the debunked and absurd suggestion that Mexico has no regulatory structure, no certified drug labs (I guess in his mind, a government testing center is not “certified”) and other nonsense they’ve been throwing out the past couple of years.

Although, he did appear to concede that maybe Mexico has some decent trucks (wonder if he as seen our galleries) he still maintains that Mexican trucks are cast off pieces of junk. Something most of us know to be not true.

But he continues to urge his shrinking member base to annoy Congress with their uninformed rhetoric in an attempt to derail any new attempts for the Obama administration to comply with our legal obligations.

OOIDA seems to have run out of steam, other than regurgitating droll and totally false claims. What they’ve latched onto now, is something called “Standards”. And of course, putting their totally frivolous spin on it.

They claim that the arbitration ruling by the NAFTA panel gave the US the right to demand that Mexico adopt standards equal to ours, and their not doing so negates our obligations under the treaty. This is more bullshit!

When the NAFTA arbitration panel ruled, they said the US had the “right” to demand Mexican trucks meet our standards.

The intent of this language is quiet clear. Mexican trucks desiring authority to operate in this country must demonstrate they can meet and operate under our legal and regulatory standards, WHEN OPERATING IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!

The 18 months of the previous Cross Border Program proved conclusively, that they can and do comply with our rules and regs, more so than US truckers, according to the FMCSA reports and the DOT/OIG Final Report on the program.

Time for the US to keep it’s word for a change and comply with our obligations in this issue.

Otherwise, don’t blame the Obama Administration for loss of jobs!

SOURCES: Reuters

Tags: cross border trucking, NAFTA, Ron Kirk