Red China Opens NAFTA Ports in Mexico

Human Events Online ^ | Jul 18, 2006 | Jerome R. Corsi

[hedgetrimmer]

The Port Authority of San Antonio has been working actively with the Communist Chinese to open and develop NAFTA shipping ports in Mexico.

The plan is to ship containers of cheap goods produced by under-market labor in China and the Far East into North America via Mexican ports. From the Mexican ports, Mexican truck drivers and railroad workers will transport the goods across the Mexican border with Texas. Once in the U.S., the routes will proceed north to Kansas City along the NAFTA Super-Highway, ready to be expanded by the Trans-Texas Corridor, and NAFTA railroad routes being put in place by Kansas City Southern. Kansas City Southern’s Mexican railroads has positioned the company to become the “NAFTA Railroad.”

Right now, the cost of shipping and ground transportation can nearly double the total cost of cheap goods produced by Chinese and Far Eastern under-market labor. The plan is to reduce those transportation costs by as much as 50% by using Mexican ports.

Cost-savings will be realized by bringing the goods into the U.S. at mid-continent. Equally important is that the substantially reduced cost of using Mexican labor in the ports and to transport the goods once off-loaded. Mexican workers undercut Longshoremen Union port employees on the docks of Los Angeles and Long Beach, just as Mexican truck drivers undercut the Teamsters and Mexican railroad workers undercut United Transportation Union railroad workers. By using the Mexican ports, the international corporations managing this global trade are able to avoid the U.S. labor union workers who otherwise would unload the ships in west coast ports and transport the Asian containers into the heart of America by U.S. truckers or U.S. railroad ground transport moving east across the Rocky Mountains.

In April 2006, officials of the Port Authority of San Antonio traveled to China with representatives of the Free Trade Alliance San Antonio, the Port of Lazaro Cardenas, and Hutchinson Port Holdings to develop the Mexican ports logistics corridor. The goal of the meetings in China was described by the March 2006 e-newsletter of the Free Trade Alliance San Antonio:

In January of 2006, a collaboration of several logistics entities in the U.S. and Mexico began operation of a new multimodal logistics corridor for Chinese goods entering the U.S. Market. The new corridor brings containerized goods from China on either Maersk or CP Ships service to the Mexican Port of Lazaro Cardenas. There, the containers are off loaded by a new world class terminal operated by Hutchinson Ports based in Hong Kong. The containers are loaded onto the Kansas City Southern Railroad de Mexico where they move in-bound into the U.S. The containers clear U.S. customs in San Antonio, Texas and are processed for distribution.

Hutchinson Whampoa, a diversified company that manages property development and telecommunications companies, with operations in 54 countries and over 200,000 employees worldwide, is also one of the world’s largest port operators. Hutchinson Ports Holding (HPH) owns Panama Ports Co., which operates the ports of Cristobal and Balboa which are located at each end of the Panama Canal. HPH also operates the industrial deepwater port of Lazaro Cardenas in the Mexican State of Michoacan, as well as the Mexican port at Manzanillo, also along the west coast of Mexico, north of Lazaro Cardenas.

The Free Trade Alliance San Antonio was created in 1994 to promote the development of San Antonio’s inland port. The Free Trade Alliance San Antonio and the Port Authority of San Antonio are both members of NASCO, an acronym for the group’s formal name, the North American’s SuperCorridor Coalition, Inc. A Kansas City Star newspaper article posted on the website of the Kansas City SmartPort, another NASCO member, shows the importance of San Antonio’s inland port to the developing NAFTA Super-Highway and NAFTA railroad corridor emerging along Interstate I-35. According to reporter Rick Alm, San Antonio envisions the opening of a Mexican customs office in their inland port, a move that has been pioneered by Kansas City SmartPort:

Under this area’s arrangement [establishing a Mexican customs facility in the Kansas City SmartPort], freight would be inspected by Mexican authorities in Kansas City and sealed in containers for movement directly to Mexican destinations with fewer costly border delays. The arrangement would become even more lucrative when Asian markets that shipped through Mexican ports were figured into the mix. “We applaud the efforts of Kansas City and the Mexican government in developing a Mexican customs facility there,” said Jorge Canavati, marketing director for Kelly USA [former name for San Antonio’s inland port established on the former site of Kelly Air Force Base]. He said a Mexican customs function for KellyUSA “is something that is still far away … We may be looking at that” in the future.

A world map on the North American Inland Ports Network (NAIPN) on the NASCO website graphically highlights in yellow the trade routes from China across the Pacific ocean, to Mexico at the ports of Manzanillo and Lazaro Cardenas, entering the U.S. through San Antonio.

A Free Trade Alliance San Antonio 2005 summary of goals and accomplishments documents the direct involvement of the Bush administration into the development of San Antonio’s inland port NAFTA plans. The following were among the bulleted points:

Organized four marketing trips to Mexico and China to promote Inland Port San Antonio and met with prospects. Met with over 50 prospects/leads during these trips. Continued to pursue cross border trucking by advocating a pilot project with at least two major Mexican exporters as potential subjects. Worked with U.S. Department of Transportation, Dept. of Homeland Security and U.S. Trade Representative on this concept. Working with Mexican ports to develop new cargo routes through the Ports of Manzanillo and Lazaro Candenas. San Antonio is on the route of the Trans-Texas Corridor planned to be built along I-35 from Laredo, Tex., on the Mexican Border, north through Dallas, en route to the Oklahoma border. The development of a China-Mexico trade route reflects a fundamental shift since the passage of NAFTA. At the peak in the mid-1990s, there were some three thousand maquiladoras located in northern Mexico, employing over 1 million Mexicans in low-paying, assembly sweat-shops. Today, even Mexican labor is not cheap enough for the international corporations seeking only to maximize profits. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, that bubble has burst and the maquiladora activity is down over 25 percent from the peak as the international corporations have found even cheaper labor in China.

As the Port of San Antonio evidences, linking NAFTA inland ports with NAFTA super-highways and NAFTA railroads is an important part of the development plan for the emerging global free trade economy. San Antonio officials by working with the communist Chinese to open Mexican ports for NAFTA trade evidence that plan. International capitalists are now determined to exploit cheap Mexican labor, not so much for manufacturing and assembly, but as a means of saving port and transportation costs in the North American market.

The Bush Administration seems on-board with the plan, aiming to increase corporate capital gains in NAFTA markets rather than worrying about the adverse consequences to Mexican low-skilled workers or to the U.S. labor movement that transferring increasing amounts of manufacturing and assembly to China entails.

[conservativecorner]

AMEN BUMP!

[hedgetrimmer]

War with the USA is “inevitable,” Red China’s Defense Minister, Chi Haotian told Hong Kong's Cheng Ming newspaper. "We cannot avoid it," he said. "Chinese armed forces must control the initiative in this war." According to right-wing Rand researchers, China's military is narrowing its technology gap with the US armed forces, using US technology transfers to prepare for a future war with the US.

Certainly they can avoid war; why is it inevitable?

sonyapeking, maybe you can answer this question.

[blackie]

Everything is great ~ doing a little home improvement. :)

[Smartass]

"Certainly they can avoid war; why is it inevitable?"

Well of course, any war can be avoided. Keep in mind, China's military made the Freudian slip of stating that war with the U.S. is inevitable. Clearly, the statement of war with China didn't come from the United States, but directly from them.

We can thank the Democrats and William Jefferson Clinton for turning over technology to the Chinese. It seems as though, this idiot of a president didn't care what, or who he gave our secrets to, as long as his personal money chest was being filled with dollars.

IMO, you don't ever trade with an enemy, as such the case of China. Among other nations, I consider China and Mexico enemies of the United States!

 

[hedgetrimmer]

you don't ever trade with an enemy

You see the "free traders" were afraid people would complain about that, so they just made China a "trading partner". Just like they are making former enemy Viet Nam a "trading partner" and like they hope to make many other enemies of the United States. Isn't it rich, how they have manipulated our system to make us beholden to our enemies for nearly everything we consume? So much so that we taxpayers will be funding a new supply chain system(international trade corridors) so they can have complete control of the goods coming into our country?

[WestCoastGal]

Did you see this one?

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Right now, the cost of shipping and ground transportation can nearly double the total cost of cheap goods produced by Chinese and Far Eastern under-market labor. The plan is to reduce those transportation costs by as much as 50% by using Mexican ports.

What in heck is "under-market" labor? Would that be any wage scale that's not approved by American union goons?

[hedgetrimmer]

I presume it means labor priced under our national labor market, not union labor specifically. Its the kind of labor that illegal aliens, and outsourcing to slave nations like China provide.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Trans-Texas Corridor PING!

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Said capacity constraints probably include the usual suspects: NIMBYs and envirowhackos.

[deport]

What this article doesn't mention is that much of this trans-Pacific trade activity in Mexico is being driven by severe capacity constraints at West Coast ports here in the U.S. (particularly Los Angeles/Long Beach).

---

Yep.... Walmart got caught in a work stoppage/slow down or whatever it was while bringing goods in through the West Coast ports for the Christmas season in 2003. The resulting delays and loss of opportunities led them to a new port facility in Houston Tx which is now operational and will bring in up to 28% of their container imports from the East. They will use the Panama Canal with some 11 days longer shipping time.

[Smartass]

Excerpt....Source:   Full Story

 

58 People Detained At Fort Bragg

POSTED: 10:35 am EDT July 18, 2006

UPDATED: 6:54 pm EDT July 18, 2006

FORT BRAGG, N.C. -- A joint effort of Fort Bragg officials, the FBI, U.S. Marshals and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents has led to the detention of 58 civilian workers with suspected false or fraudulently obtained identification.

The sweep was conducted between 6 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. when most of the thousand soldiers and civilian workers who live off the post enter the gates. Officials said the vast majority of the detainees were construction workers.

 

 

 

[potlatch]

FORT BRAGG, N.C. - 58 civilian workers with suspected false or fraudulently obtained identification.

Amazing! Thanks for the ping Smartass.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

The little chicom b*tch has been banned. Rest assured, should the chicoms attack us, I'm sure we could reach an amicable settlement after kicking their slave-driving butts back and forth across the Pacific a few times.

[Smartass]

Excerpt...Source:   Full Article

States stepping up to tackle immigration laws

By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 18, 2006

State lawmakers are offering more than 500 bills this year targeting state-mandated services, illegal aliens and the employers who hire them, responding to a growing chorus of public opinion nationwide calling for stricter enforcement of immigration laws.
    Led by Georgia, where benefits for illegal aliens were cut and stiff sanctions placed on employers who hire illegals, and by Colorado, which banned nonemergency services to those in the country illegally, at least 39 states have either proposed or passed similar legislation.
    Lawmakers have focused on constituency concerns regarding an estimated 10 million to 12 million illegal aliens now in the country, resulting in rising costs for education and medical care, higher crime rates and exploitation by employers.
    Georgia lawmakers passed and Gov. Sonny Perdue, a Republican, signed legislation this year requiring adults seeking benefits to prove their U.S. citizenship, sanctioning employers who hire illegals and requiring companies with state contracts to check employees' legal status. The Georgia laws also require police to check the legal status of people they arrest.

 

 

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Well, President Bush doesn't seem to have a problem dealing with President Harris Eric and Premier Klebold Dylan of China, either. I can't avoid buying from (and thus indirectly paying taxes to) China all the time, but you can rest assured that I consciously strive to deprive their whack-job government of money whenever I can.

[Smartass]

Excerpt...Source:  Full Article

Chinese economy roars ahead

By Richard McGregor in Beijing and Florian Gimbel in Hong Kong

Published: July 18 2006 05:17 | Last updated: July 18 2006 12:57

China’s economy accelerated at the fastest rate in more than a decade in the second quarter, growing by 11.3 per cent year-on-year on the back of a swelling trade surplus and rapid expansion in investment.

The surprisingly strong growth in gross domestic product, which was up by 10.9 per cent in the first half of the year, left economists divided on the likely timing of any new economic tightening measures by the central government.

Zheng Jingping, an official of the National Bureau of Statistics, conceded on Tuesday that China was experiencing “problems” with “excessive investment and liquidity and rapid credit growth,” and with the accumulation of too much foreign exchange reserves.

But in what appeared to be an attempt to damp down expectations that fresh initiatives will be announced soon to temper the pace of expansion, Mr Zheng said overall growth was “reasonable.

<snip>

 

[janetgreen]

The Bush Administration seems on-board with the plan, aiming to increase corporate capital gains in NAFTA markets rather than worrying about the adverse consequences to Mexican low-skilled workers or to the U.S. labor movement that transferring increasing amounts of manufacturing and assembly to China entails.

An American president who favors foreign interests and profits over American jobs or national security. Sellout.

[Smartass]

IMO, except for the quisling Spaniards that abandoned
us, we should be trading with countries that were
partners with us in Iraq.

I've never read the trade agreement with China, but
it has to be miles out of balance compared to other
countries. I believe in fair trade, hovever, the
U.S. has become a literal Chinese trade dump.

 

[E.G.C.]

BTTT