Mexico Trucker Online

Another undeniable truth by USA Today editorial staff.

There’s an old maxim that if all the world’s economists were laid end-to-end, they would still not reach a conclusion. Yet if there’s one thing economists agree on, it’s that high tariffs and protectionist policies made the Great Depression far worse.

That’s why it’s particularly troubling, at this precarious economic moment, that the U.S. and Mexico are engaged in an entirely avoidable trade war.

The spark is whether Mexican long-haul truckers can deliver goods inside the USA, something the North American Free Trade Agreement promised they could do in border states by 1995 and throughout the nation by 2000.

Guess what? It never happened. The politically powerful Teamsters Union and its enablers in Congress threw up roadblock after roadblock. Last month, a spending-bill provision killed a 2007 pilot project that had allowed about 100 Mexican trucks to travel past a commercial zone within 25 miles of the border.

Predictably and completely legally, Mexico retaliated — by slapping tariffs on $2.4 billion worth of strawberries, grapes, dishwashers, pencils, cordless telephones, pet food and more than 80 other U.S. export products. Targets include California wine makers, Oregon potato producers and a Wisconsin soy sauce maker. Mexico has threatened to escalate the tariffs if the U.S. doesn’t restore the trucking program.

That’s exactly what the administration and Congress should do, before more U.S. exporters and their employees suffer needlessly so the Teamsters can have their way. Protectionism always invites retaliation and leaves nations that fight trade wars poorer. The danger is even worse in these tough economic times, when the U.S. should be leading the fight, at this week’s Group of 20 summit and elsewhere, to preserve open markets.

For years, the truckers and their congressional allies have charged that Mexican trucks and their drivers are too unsafe to allow into the USA. Their argument relies on scare tactics instead of facts. The few studies that have been conducted show that Mexican truckers are as safe as or safer than their U.S. counterparts.

In 2007, for example, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration reviewed the 2003-06 records of Mexican trucks that are allowed to travel throughout the U.S. under a special exception. The study showed that about 1% of those Mexican drivers were removed from service after failing roadside safety inspections, while 7% of American drivers were required to stand down.

There’s no reason Mexican trucks and drivers can’t be required to meet U.S. safety standards, nor is it clear that American drivers would lose work if they had the same right to drive goods into Mexico that Mexican drivers would have here.

In place of sensible reciprocity, though, there’s a clumsy, grossly inefficient system that requires two or more trucks to bring a shipment from inside Mexico to the USA. All this unnecessary unloading and loading adds an estimated $200 million or more to the cost of imports, a “trucking tax” that takes money from U.S. consumers.

It’s time for the Obama administration and Congress to stop knuckling under to the Teamsters and drive a better bargain.