More evidence Mexican trucks coming to U.S. [Internal document anticipates increasing volume]

WorldNet Daily ^ | July 8, 2006 | Not Cited

[conservativecorner]

An internal document shows a planned "inland port" in Kansas City anticipates an increasing volume of Mexican truck traffic, despite claims it will be restricted to railroad transports from south of the border.

WND has obtained, via a Missouri Sunshine Law request, an internal spreadsheet analysis prepared by the port project, Kansas City SmartPort, indicating that "with marketing," it projects that in 2010 a high of 508 trucks per day would pass through a Mexican customs facility located at the port. The volume would grow to a projected high of 881 trucks per day in 2015.

As WND has reported, KC SmartPort plans to utilize deep-sea Mexican ports such as Lazaro Cardenas to unload containers from China and the Far East as part of the North American Free Trade Agreement super-highway plan.

The plan would include the hotly contested allowance of Mexican trucks on U.S. roads, WND has reported, but Tasha Hammes of the Kansas City Area Development Council has insisted the port will be restricted to railroad traffic.

Internal KC SmartPort e-mails obtained by WND show that both Kansas City and Mexican officials were concerned that enough truck volume would be processed through the Mexican customs facility to make the project economically viable for Mexico to maintain a customs staff on site.

A Jan. 13, 2005, e-mail from David Eaton, the president of Monterrey Business Consultants in Monterrey, Mexico, who is credited with first proposing the Mexican customs facility, stresses the need for success:

Other communities such as Dallas and San Antonio have requested that Mexican Customs put facilities in their communities. Mexico has determined that our project will be the Pilot and others will not be approved until it is determined that this works … as Ken Hoffman [outside counsel to KC SmartPort] said … we need to make sure this works! [ellipsis in original] An e-mail dated Jan. 10 from Jose M. Garcia, representative of Mexico's Ministry of Finance in Mexico's Washington, D.C., embassy, asks KC SmartPort President Chris Gutierrez to be more precise. Garcia wrote:

The statistical data show in the study hardly offers us a list of potential users (targets), those that we (Mexican Customs and USCBP [U.S. Customs and Border Protection]) must attract and convince to move their cargo through [KC SmartPort] and be cleared by US and Mexican Customs. This list will be used for our promotional efforts. Replying to Garcia's e-mail, Erendira Rodriguez of KC SmartPort affirmed Jan. 17 that "SmartPort has $400,000 specifically to market the [Mexican customs] facility and the increased exports of U.S. products to Mexico. The marketing will not start until there are more assurances that the facility will open."

KC SmartPort consistently has maintained to WND that the Mexican customs facility was intended to be for outbound exports to Mexico only and would separate from the Lazaro Cardenas-to-Kansas City corridor. In a June 29 e-mail to WND, Hammes of the Kansas City Area Development Council emphasized the distinction:

The proposed KC Customs Port and Lazaro Cardenas to KC Corridor (made possible by KCS [Kansas City Southern]) are two non-related, separate efforts that KC SmartPort is supporting. (One is rail, the other truck. There is no crossover between the corridor and the proposed facility.) Yet, that contention is inconsistent with a U.S.-Mexico Freight Flow Analysis presented on the KC SmartPort website. According to that study, conducted for KC SmartPort by MARC [Mid-America Regional Council], the dominant mode for hinterland trade export to Mexico was rail.

As the MARC report noted on page 5, "For the SmartPort hinterland, grain products were the largest export commodity group. Manufactured and intermediate goods were the top import commodities." And, again, "Turning to exports by mode, rail is forecast to grow faster than truck which reflects the predominance of bulky and lower value commodities in the export trade with Mexico."

Still, KC SmartPort argues the Mexican customs office is for outgoing trucks only and that only the Kansas City Southern railroad will be used to import goods that enter Mexico via the port of Lazaro Cardenas.

Hammes wrote in her June 29 e-mail to WND: "Mexican trucks will NOT be coming to KC or utilizing the facility."

Even more emphatically, she stated a paragraph later:

The containers that come in through the port of Lazaro Cardenas will enter the U.S. on a U.S. railroad (Kansas City Southern) NOT a Mexican Railroad or via Mexican trucks. The LC to KC corridor is a rail corridor ONLY. As I stated earlier, this is nothing new other than the fact that KCS acquired the Mexican railroad that served the port of Lazaro Cardenas last year. But the KC SmartPort internal e-mails indicate otherwise. A Jan. 13 e-mail from David Eaton noted: "The authorities agreed that the [Mexican customs] facility will be BOTH TRUCK AND RAIL from the beginning."

Other internal e-mails reveal a determination by KC SmartPort and KC city officials to control their public relations message.

When an Associated Press report hit the wires Jan. 30 revealing a scandal in Mexico that could affect Kansas City's Mexican customs facility, it prompted a flurry of e-mails within KC SmartPort.

A Jan. 30 e-mail from KC SmartPort President Gutierrez to outside counsel Hoffman noted with apparent alarm: "The Associated Press story has reach 30 markets now. Many of the stories have appeared in the last day."

On Jan. 31, Gutierrez broadcast an e-mail to more than 50 respondents, including Kansas City Council members and a Kansas City Southern railroad spokesman, in which he dismissed the AP article, advising that the scandal was only Mexican "presidential election campaigning with one party stirring up things on the other parties and vice versa."

[ncountylee]

Mexico is spending how much for this project?

[Just mythoughts]

Hmmmmm Missouri is known for 'bad' roads, past couple of years it is amazing how much construction and reconstruction are in the works. Something is up when more than the same potholes get refilled year after year. I had read someplace about a cement shortage, well with what is getting poured around here I am not surprised.

[cripplecreek]

The goal seems to be, lie till it's all done, then claim it's too late to do anything about it. Just like border control.

I don't care what little backroom deals our politicians have made. If they've gotten themselves into trouble with their masters it's their problem.

[1rudeboy]

Umm . . . you might've missed it, but a few short months ago people were up in arms over foreign ownership of terminals. Now you want Mexico to pay for this one?

[ncountylee]

Didn't say that, just want to know the funding source which is different from control.

[Rex Anderson]

Maybe if some sort of roadway could be built from the border straight to the KC port, where the trucks could be tracked by GPS systems, and the trucks would also have their own separate lanes

Oh, wait. They are against that, too.

[expat_panama]

just want to know the funding source which is different from control.

the Mexicans are comming the Mexians are comming!

The idea being that it's better for Americans to buy into and control foreign businesses instead of foreigners doing it to us.    

I may have the solution.    I'm part owner of an American truck company  (heavy-duty trucks under the Kenworth, Peterbilt, DAF, and Foden nameplates) that bought out a Mexican truck manufacturing plant.  They're now building and using American trucks in Mexico.

This article is not telling the truth.  It says "Mexican trucks coming to U.S." but the truth is that while it may be Mexicans doing the driving, it's American trucks that are coming in.

[expat_panama]

the trucks would also have their own separate lanes  Oh, wait. They are against that, too.

They're against everything.  

We're talking about a project here that would beef up border/port security with upgraded facilities, state of the art controls, plus additional customs and immigration personnel for managing everything.  They hate it.  Makes me wonder just where their loyalties are.

[Ben Ficklin]

"This article is not telling the truth."

The article also fails to mention that there is significant amount of cross border ownership of the trucking companies.

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