Mexican trucks to haul freight on U.S. roads
The ambitious but controversial North American Free Trade Agreement[->0] between the United States[->1], Canada and Mexico from the 1990s is back, this time as the backdrop to a contentious new cross-border deal allowing Mexican freight trucks onto U.S. highways.
The agreement, announced last month by theDepartment of Transportation[->2], is being assailed by critics as a possibly illegal undertaking that will take jobs from U.S. truckers and money from U.S. taxpayers. It is opposed by the USA[->3]'s largest transportation union, the Teamsters, by a national association of independent truckers and by some federal lawmakers from both parties.
"We think it's unsafe, unfair and wrong for America," says Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa. "It's a danger to highway safety. …? It will cost thousands of trucking and warehouse jobs."
He says the agreement is "probably illegal" because it goes beyond the scope of an earlier cross-border trucking pilot program that Congress killed in 2009.
Critics such as Reps. Peter DeFazio[->4], D-Ore., andDuncan Hunter[->5], R-Calif., argue that Mexico's trucking industry is far less regulated and monitored than the USA's and that the deal opens the way for Mexican narco-traffickers to gain a foothold on U.S. roads. They're not convinced by assurances that Mexican trucks and drivers will be carefully inspected and monitored by U.S. authorities.
"It takes $50 and a fake gold watch to get out of a speeding ticket in Tijuana," says Hunter. "This is a place where, if you think slapping a sticker on a windshield is going to stop the narco-traffickers down there from using that truck, I would say the (federal transportation) guys are extremely naï?ve."
Supporters hail the agreement as an end to tariffs that have cost U.S. companies more than $2 billion. They say it will create thousands of