Obama Flip Flops and Reconsiders Mexican Trucking Pilot Program

[Omaha Steve]

http://unionreview.com/obama-flip-flops-and-reconsiders-mexican-trucking-pilot



I remember when the Teamsters (and just about every other union in the United States) hit the streets to organize for Obama. We were phone banking, knocking on doors, talking to everyone we could. I ended up going to labor council meetings, large locals and even a Labor Day Parade to endlessly preach the need for Obama; that Obama was what Labor needed. Though I personally believe we need a third party in the United States, I rallied behind Obama. I rallied for Obama because he made promises, among many others, to kill a Mexican trucking program that was born out of NAFTA. It appears now that the Obama forgot that Labor worked day and night for him because he is now ready to get that pilot program up and running again.

The pilot program was one of the campaigns I worked on during Bush. Though Clinton might have been an OK president, he really screwed us with NAFTA. Part of NAFTA was this Mexican trucking pilot program in question. The program would basically allow trucks coming in from Mexico to not only enter the U.S., but travel throughout the country to unload and load. Bush loved this plan, as did his Department of Transportation secretary, Mary Peters. They loved it because they thought trade with Mexico would go bonkers with love from the NAFTA program. It never flew. The Teamsters and other unions fought and fought, and eventually had small victories halting the pilot program.

When we campaigned for Obama, he made a promise to entirely kill (not fund) the pilot program. He kept to that promise, and then Mexico retaliated against the U.S. by imposing tariffs on a long list of U.S. exports, including fruit, vegetables and industrial goods. Mexico was really pissed off because, according to NAFTA, the U.S. wasn't keeping to its end of the deal.

So that was 2009, and on Thursday January 6, 2011, the Obama administration we worked so hard to get in office, offered a proposal to once again allow long-haul Mexican trucks to move cargo into and out of the United States.

This is a repeat of Bush-era bullshit.

FULL story at link.

[robcon]

1. It's about time. We've been violating the NAFTA treaty for 15 years.

I can't wait for justice.

[Ikonoklast]

12. The Mexican Federal Government has been their own worst enemy.

They dragged their feet and failed to adopt standards that were specifically agreed to...by them.

They wanted the U.S. to let Mexican carriers into this country while trying to fix things on their end 'on the fly'.

[golfguru]

2. I assume they will be driving Mexican trucks?

Are those trucks on par with American trucks from safety standards POV?
How about the Mexican drivers? Do they have adequate training and familiarity with
American rules of the road?

[Ikonoklast]

10. That has been the problem all along.

The Mexican federal government dragged their feet when it came to keeping accurate records for driver eligibility and safety records.

What they wanted was to be able to tell the U.S. that they vouched for the safety records of their drivers and equipment, and that we should take their word for it.

They were told that wasn't good enough, and that a system had to be put into place where any Mexican national driving a commercial vehicle in this country would have a driving record that could be immediately searchable by U.S. authorities on a database accessible to any law enforcement agency in this country.

Unlike the in the U.S., there was no nationwide database for commercial drivers in Mexico, no way to ensure a driver was actually qualified, no way to even verify that the driver was who he said he was, no way to check and see if he was medically qualified to drive a CMV, no way to ascertain how many moving violations the driver had, how many accidents, etc.

That plan was finally put into place by Mexico and quietly, Mexican trucks have been running on U.S. highways in a closely monitored pilot program, with only the very best of the best Mexican fleets and drivers participating on a very limited basis.

Then the pilot program ended.

The real problem with Mexican commercial vehicles running in this country now is the lack of actual reciprocity; there are very few U.S. carriers who would let their drivers and equipment into Mexico because of the increased violence and lawlessness in many parts of that country. Drivers, equipment, and freight would be at risk...and the insurance companies that would potentially be on the hook for millions of dollars in claims, and, well, they hate risk.

U.S. carriers fear that their drivers and equipment would be marked for hijacking, and the Mexican government would do little if anything to stop it, as they just do not have the resources to do so.

Even though domestic carriers will have a legal right to haul freight into and out of Mexico, because of the risks involved both perceived and actual, for the most part U.S. carriers will stay on this side of the border.

Mexican commercial carriers will then have a virtual monopoly on the freight lanes into and out of Mexico due to lack of U.S. carrier participation.

[golfguru]

11. You said he magic word "RECIPROCITY"

That has to be the overriding principle in all our foreign trade.
American companies face far more barriers in exporting goods & services
to the Oriental countries than their corporations face exporting stuff here.

Both repubs and dems are guilty of selling out to the lobbyists on foreign trade.

[Ikonoklast]

13. One thing that most people here don't know is this:

Hell, most people in this country don't even know it, and I would be willing to bet most politicians don't, either.

Many of the biggest supporters of cross-border freight traffic into and out of Mexico are the largest non-union truckload carriers in THIS country.




Want to know why?

It's not that they want to send their own trucks cross-border, I'll tell you that right off the bat.




Take a wild-assed guess...









Wait for it...









It's because many of the Mexican domiciled and registered trucking companies are either partnering with, are having their fleets modernized by, or are wholly-owned subsidiaries of low-wage, anti-union AMERICAN TRUCKING COMPANIES looking to make a killing with low-wage Mexican drivers hauling products that American drivers otherwise would have.

Their Mexican partners will run the companies staffed entirely with Mexican citizens, but the U.S. companies will be making all the profits.

They won't risk sending their trucks or drivers across the border, but who cares if a few Mexicans get killed in a hijacking?

[golfguru]

15. Probably true...However I am for foreign trade because

it actually expands economies in both countries. But it has to be a level playing ground.

I would even go so far as to force EQUAL trade with every country. No trade imbalance
allowed with any country in their favor.

Of course that would kill of China so it will never happen. The Chinese are very large
contributors of campaign cash.

[Exilednight]

20. The great Free trade vs Fair trade problem. I agree, if Mexican truckers were

guaranteed to get paid equal wages to their American counterparts, then I would be fully behind this agreement.

[jtuck004]

24. Would you mind explaining how losing tens of millions of manufacturing

jobs due to imports and cheap labor in other countries "expands" our economy? That may be true for
developing countries, but it has been shown to weaken ours.

The Chinese have over 2 trillion American dollars in reserve now, while we have a deficit of trade dollars
because along with their trade - and they are using that largess to build up their country, build up their
military - we are losing in respect to that.

The argument that "foreign trade...actually expands economies in both countries" was an argument used by
its proponenets, and in a college textbook looks really good, but any honest look at its actual practice
proves it demonstrably false.

[golfguru]

25. OK...let me explain in simpler terms

If Mexico starts making stuff we made here, then our exports to Mexico
would fall off. Because we would be then importing cheaper Mexico goods.

THAT WILL CAUSE IMBALANCE in flow of currency. That would trigger automatic
tariffs or bans on Mexican imports.

If trade is BALANCED, it means Mexico is importing just as much stuff from
us as we are importing from them.

Which simply means there is enough economic activity here to balance effect
of imports. And economic activity here = additional jobs here to manufacture
the exports.

Yes, once you sit down and cool down beyond emotional outburst, it is
easy to see the benefits of foreign trade.

There are some goods one country can make better and cheaper so it is to the
benefit of trading partners to gain from such exchange.

Before digital watches were invented, Switzerland made the best mechanical
watches. Every country which imported those watches benefited.

What is happening right now is we are importing far more than we are
exporting, especially to China and oil producing countries. It is NOT a
balanced trade. We are building enormous debts to them. NOT GOOD!

[jtuck004]

26. In other words the world you are describing doesn't exist.

When those goods are made in Mexico, the jobs, and the lives they supported, vanish - and that human tragedy is not accounted for in the mythical world where "foreign trade...actually expands economies in both countries".

When those job vanish along with them goes the tax base that supported the communities - schools, fire, police, etc. Homes and lives are lost, debt increases - all the economic effects of those lost jobs disappear. None of that will come back until not only trade is balanced, but all that was lost is restored. Which will never happen.

It's like trying to fill 6 empty glasses of milk from one full one - you will never, ever fill the first glass to the level it started at unless you create more milk. And that isn't happening. So we are destined to live for decades in a permanent state of half-empty, while the proponents of so-called free trade run around the destroyed lives of people they really don't care about telling them they should look at it as half-full.

The timeline for those processes to work through are practically nonexistent. Mexico is an easy case, in a mythical world where only the U.S. and Mexico exist. But that's not the world we live in. Mexico only brings a hundred million or so competitors, but China
brings 1.3 billion, and we have to add in Vietnam, Brazil - many hundreds of millions of other competitors. In countries where people are starting from very little, not only can a government afford to underwrite the education of its people for less money, they can also keep their currency values and pay very low. Their citizens can, and do, work for 1/100th of what one was paid in the developed country, so that the so-called BALANCED state won't be reached for many generations - long after our economies, along with millions of lives, are destroyed - and that doesn't repair the damage done in the beginning of the process.

It's pretty easy to see, now that we have a couple decades of those effects behind us. Debt increased dramatically, both on a personal and a national level in this country, while assets increased in virtually every country we tried to increase foreign trade with. That debt hid those effects for awhile, but the curtain has been pulled back and the wreckage is easy to see. Over 30 million people have lost their livelihood or ability to make enough money to live, 40 million on food stamps, 14 million foreclosures with more likely to come along this year with the new ARM resets. The criminals at the banks have, and continue to, rob us blind. The effects would not have been nearly as bad on an economy which was creating wealth by building things and employing people in good jobs, instead of creating debt. But those were traded away in a bargain with the devil.

There are some benefits to foreign trade, though they have more to do with political conditions than economics. It is ironic to read that we should set aside "Emotions". Explain that to the mother or father in tears while they figure out how they tell their kids there will be no food until school on Monday, or they are losing their home, because their job went to China where it was cheaper - and because their government shirked their responsibility to compensate for that with better training and more forward-looking economic planning. On the other hand really bad analysis and a complete disregard of reality, not to mention a whole list of falsehoods, appears to be the first product of the proponents of a process which is helping to destroy this country.

That's what I figured I would hear, just wanted to make sure.

[golfguru]

27. It benefits us if SOME of our jobs vanish!

Because the jobs which will vanish are not very productive or cost effective.

On the other hand Mexico must import equal amount in dollars what we import
from them. Which will expand jobs in our most efficient and cost effective
goods and services area.

In todays world we can not survive by protecting low skilled jobs in US paying
high wages. If I am forced to buy American made golf equipment, I will quit
playing golf and no one benefits from my dollars.

The key is EQUAL trade. It does not exist today. That is why NAFTA, oil imports
and China are killing our economy.

Foreign trade must be BALANCED to be beneficial. Our debts have increased because
we have allowed UN-balanced trade. If China wants to export us more than we export
them then they must import more from some other country who imports more from us.

Again, in todays world, there IS NO BALANCED TRADE. Until that changes, we will
keep losing jobs.

For several decades after WW II we had huge trade surplus every year. Those days
are long gone but laws have not changed much. That is the problem.

[jtuck004]

28. That was how this was originally sold, and it doesn't tell the whole story.

Of course there is value in protecting lower-skilled jobs. Those people need work as much as anyone. It is your identity in the world.

We get benefit from someone making bed springs. Sometimes they go home at night and realize they can do it a better way, provide a contracted service to your factory, maybe create a whole new business. I am going to speculate that unemployed people watching Oprah do not get many epiphanies about commerce. So we get a benefit if people, in general, are at least at work, perhaps out of the house, every day. That is what China (and Brazil, Russia, others are doing, and they are benefiting from it).

I will agree that there are sometimes more efficient ways to get a set of golf clubs. But you do not go into the pro shop asking for imports. You ask for 20 more yards on your drive. If I had a club that would improve your short game you would buy it whether it was made in Tulsa, Oklahoma or Thailand. But yeah, as a general rule, we can get outdoor lights and electronics and ...made cheaper in China than here. Whether it will always be true that transport doesn't add enough to change that is questionable, but true today.

From just a kindness and respect perspective, not everyone is going to be a financial wizard - some will be customer service reps at minimum wage. If we throw them to the sharks and keep all the good jobs, we are insuring high unemployment for the most vulnerable workers.

There are some good reasons to work with other countries, but not to our detriment, and that is what we have done.

Absent a technological achievement that insures lots of new employment, like ARPA Net -> Internet, Oil - > transportation however, I don't ever see a parity in trade. Just a decrease in jobs here, an increase in other places. At least not within a half-dozen rather miserable lifetimes. And a lot of profit for someone other than the workers.

That said, I still think those that want to could sometimes run the business effectively against such competition.

Thank you

[Exilednight]

19. Not to mention that they can pay non-unionized Mexican truckers pennies on the dollar compared to

unionized American truckers.

Anyone who thinks this is a good idea fails to recognize that it goes against core Democratic and core democratic principles; well, at least it goes against what use to be a core Democratic principles. I'm not sure if I recognize the current party.

[ProSense]

3. The Obama administration has barred Mexican trucking since March 2009

Obama Plan Aims to Ease Mexican Trucking Ban

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration offered a proposal on Thursday to allow long-haul Mexican trucks to move cargo in the United States.

The proposal, which the Mexican government greeted as a positive step, was the latest sign of a new willingness by the Obama administration to support free-trade measures backed by Republicans and by businesses despite objections from labor unions and other liberal constituencies.

The United States has effectively barred Mexican trucks from operating on American roads since March 2009. Mexico said the ban violated the North American Free Trade Agreement, which took effect in 1994, and retaliated by imposing $2.4 billion in punitive tariffs on a wide range of American agricultural and other products imported to Mexico.

On Thursday, the United States transportation secretary, Ray LaHood, offered a “concept document” that could help resolve the dispute.

<...>

Here is the Teamsters statement: Hoffa 'Deeply Disappointed' In Mexican Trucks Proposal

[mtnsnake]

4. All your article does is back up what the OP says

[ProSense]

7. Really?

Did the OP article mention the proposal and specifics?

The President said in August 2009 that he was trying to resolve the dispute.

Aug. 10 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama told his Mexican counterpart Felipe Calderon that he is committed to resolving a dispute over truck access to U.S. highways.

Obama said he will also address safety concerns about the trucks raised by the U.S. Congress, an administration official said after the two leaders met in Guadalajara yesterday at a summit of North American leaders. Calderon told Obama that the dispute has hurt trade, raised consumer costs and reduced job creation, according to a statement from his press office.

<...>

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[Doremus]

5. Not surprised, but no less disappointed.

Is there a leftist constituency we haven't betrayed, backstabbed, or sold out yet? The plutocracy would like to hear from you.

[treestar]

6. Maybe the tariffs are causing too much damage?

At least get both sides before judging.

[Union Scribe]

9. Who are the globalists unreccing this?

[Skittles]

16. we all know who they are

[SpartanDem]

14. We allow Canadian trucks

go Europe and you'll trucks different countries criss crossing the EU. If these Mexican trucks are going to meet US standards then let them cross.

[Omaha Steve]

23. You said it

IF! On wages, training, date base, and safety.

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

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[AzDar]

21. K & R

:kick:

[senseandsensibility]

22. k and r

Not this again.

[Citizen Worker]

29. Ever wonder why our roads and bridges are falling apart? A little known provision contained in

NAFTA mandated that US and Canadian truck GVW be increased to meet the Mexican standard of 105,500 lbs. Our roads and bridges were built to handle 80,000 lb load limits with a safety margin of probably 10-15%, not 105,500 lbs. The next time you're on the highway take a look at the GVW ratings painted on the side of the long haul trucks and the dump trucks. They're clearly tagged at 105,500. We taxpayers are once again being forced to pay for the damage done by greedy capitalists. I'm willing to bet that most DUers weren't aware of this either.