NAU/SPP flag/s
Posted on 06/02/2009 4:38:43 AM PDT by radar101
MEXICO CITY -- A Mexican trade association representing more than 4,500 trucking companies is seeking $6 billion in damages from the U.S. government because of Washington's refusal to allow Mexican trucks to carry cargo over U.S. roads.
The group, Canacar, filed a demand for arbitration under the North American Free Trade Agreement with the U.S. State Department in April, but didn't publicize the move until Monday.
"We want reciprocity," said Pedro Ojeda, a lawyer for Canacar. "The U.S. has notoriously not kept its commitments." Mr. Ojeda said the complaint is the largest such demand made under Nafta, as the 1993 pact is known.
Deborah Mesloh, a spokeswoman for U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, said Monday that, "We take our trade obligations very seriously and this is an issue we've been working on for a couple months." A State Department spokesman said the claim is "being studied."
The arbitration demand is the latest fallout from legislation signed earlier this year by President Barack Obama canceling a pilot program that had allowed Mexican trucks to carry cargo on U.S. roads. In March, the Mexican government retaliated by slapping tariffs on $2.4 billion of U.S. goods.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
“Free” trade? Do what we tell you or we’ll sue.
Mexican death traps on US roads...No thanks.
BO will pay that, no problem. He’ll swing by on his next “Apologies for America” tour.
NAFTA trade down almost 28 percent in March.
Reminds me of this past Sunday morning as I was at a gas station fueling the Home Depot rental truck before returning it to the store, a man whom could hardly speak English approached me to give him some money for some breakfast at the Denny’s next door.
I told him I didn’t have any cash (was using my Mobile-Exxon card for the fuel), and this guy proceeded to lecture me in his butchered English about sharing with the poor. He became quite intimidating as he proceeded with his lecture, and I became quite irritated with the bastard.
This was across the street and down a block from the Home Depot in Riverside where at least a hundred, perhaps more of the Illegals lurk seeking day labor.
Wondering when they will sue the likes of me for not sharing our so-called wealth?
” a man whom could hardly speak English... “
It’s not just the swine flu that’s contagious...
Why aren’t these mother truckers just using illegals to carry their loads. This would keep goods coming into the country and lower the amount of drugs.
Translation - Mexican truckers want THEIR bailout. Zero will probably give it to them.
Ping!
If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
So far the Mexican trucks have an excellent record, both in on-the-road safety and in results of safety inspections.
Wanna get death traps off the road ? Get rid of illegals and their uninsured junkers !
I think the Mexican truckers have a legitimate complaint. Of course, the Teamsters won’t like it.
Had the same experience with an illegal at a Shell here in Houston.
As I was holding a gas hose and had a lighter in my pocket I didn't find him TOO intimidating.
Needless to say, I won't ever shop again at that Shell that tolerates illegals of their property.
Wait until the US trucking companies that invested in Mexican trucking companies start their lawsuits, then you will see some big bucks.
But remittances are only down about 19%. Go figure. BTW: Mexico can KMTA.
LOL apparently they would sue on the grounds that they tried to screw Americans by outsourcing to “Mexican” trucking companies and got bent over the stump of the tree they cut down. LOL
Those US investors, as well as far fewer Mexican investors who invested north of the border, have had their investment stranded.
The Mexican govt won their case against the US pursuant to NAFTA Chapter 20 while the investors' claim will be pursuant to Chapter 11. Chapter 11 contains the investor protections against creeping or changing regulations.
Reagan insisted that the investor protections be included.
Let me ask you a question. If a truck is domiciled in Mexico, but is owned by a US company, is that a US truck or a Mexican truck?
Don’t know don’t care. I just enjoy seeing you free traitors getting bent over a stump.
In the coming years there will be more reforms opening the door further for private unions and the dems certainly want the teamsters and United Farm Workers to get their shot at representing Mexican workers.
If the investors can globalize, why not the unions?
“NAFTA Chapter 11 is the portion of the North American Free Trade Agreement that allows investors from one NAFTA country to sue the government of another NAFTA country for actions which hurt them or their investments. Its protections include: a promise to pay full, fair and effective compensation when governments expropriate investments made in their territories; as well as a promise by NAFTA governments to provide investors from the other countries “treatment no less favourable” than that which they have given to their own investors in the North American Free Trade Area.”
Wouldn’t US investor be sueing their own country in this case?
Go ask your boy Zero for a bailout and leave Americans alone.
Invasion-as-usual. Nothing to see here, move along.
The establishment of NAFTA tribunals (International courts) is an affront to the sovereignty of this country and the others for that matter.
Congress was duped again (or complicit)
Yes, and that is the rub. The original justification for the investor protections was that when US investors went into Latin America under an Investor-State trade agreement aka Free Trade Agreement, the investor could protect himself against taxes, but he would not be able to protect his investment from taxes masquerading as enviro or labor regulations.
In this sense, Chapter 11 was a shield. But after NAFTA was signed the lawyers converted the shield into a sword and began using it to attack US regulations.
This is what started the democrats' conspiracy theory that the GOP and the Federalist Society were using NAFTA, CAFTA, and FTAA to roll back the New Deal
Guess *comspiracies* work both ways.
The left wing populists in latin America and the rightwing populists in the US have stopped FTAA so we will never know if the conspiracy theory was true.
If our sovereignty is determined by our regulatory law.
Like all democrats, you love regulatory law.
You don’t believe in sovereignty?
In this case you say our sovereignty is measured on our regulatory law, I say it isn't.
We need to eliminate regulatory law whenever, wherever, and however.
But remittances are only down about 19%. Go figure.
Trade between Mexico, Canada and the US isn't exactly correlated with remittances from the US to Mexico. Go figure.
Fulfill your agreements or we'll sue.
Right and allow companies and individuals to trample environmental and local laws at will? That's the biggest problem with globalization. It doesn't have a soul.
Do you?
KMTA
Does your wife know how you swing?
When American truckers can safely deliver cargoes in Mexico, we should allow Mexican truckers to operate in the US.
Right now, that is not the case.
This is a good example because the enviros weere instrumental on Mexican trucks.
Their solution was that the US Govt should just pay off everybody who lost money because of the change in regulation.
That sounds good on paper but the damages mount each year. In 2000 the award to Mexico was 2 billion, but now is 2.4 billion.
Just as we suspected all along. You don't care about jobs, taxes, or U.S. sovereignty.
That would make the International Brotherhood of Teamsters the biggest pussies on the face of the planet. Not only are they afraid of delivering boxes to Mexico, but they expect boxes from Mexico to be loaded onto their trucks at the border.
But, the US can't hold the Mexican trucks to a higher standard than they do US trucks or Canadian trucks.
Furthermore, the US can bar any Mexican truck does not meet those standards, but the US cannot deny entry of Mexican trucks based on the theory that all, or a lot, or a few Mexican trucks don't meet the standards.
And to that end, the US Congress added the Murray Shelby amendment to the highway bill in 2001, which authorized and appropriated money to the border states to build inspection stations to inspect each and every Mexican truck.
Sunspots are down also, or are they up? Perhaps a protectionist will drop by and correlate them to interest rates, or something.
I wonder if he thinks that all illegals work in exporting/importing industries? I wonder if he thinks....
I see we are back to the argument that companies trample environmental laws.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative does well enough documenting everything. We don’t need to go to your commie-lib website.
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