White House OKs Mexican truck program (despite a new law by Congress against it)

AP on Yahoo ^ | 1/4/08 | Andrew Taylor - ap

[Diplomat]

NAFTA is a treaty under INTERNATIONAL LAW which the United States has agreed to SUBMIT TO. That fact that a rat president and Republican congress passed a likely unconstatutional bill hasn't for one second changed the fact the our soveriegnty in these matters now lies in the hands of international tribunals.

You can pretend that the United States did not give up soveignty here. You can even use the phony language the U.S. government used to get around the Senate confirmation.

BUT I AM NOT GOING TO ALLOW YOU TO PRETEND THAT THIS IS NOT AN INTERNATIONALLY RECOGNIZED TREATY AGREEMENT THAT DOESN'T FORCE THE UNITED STATES TO ACCEPT THE TRIBUNALS RULINGS.

NAFTA has the force of law. As with any law, it can be changed or abolished with the passage of another law

This isn't true with NAFTA in the context that we cannot escape any actions currently in play. Nor could we escape any judgement in which the loss to the Canadian or Mexican citizen is to have occurred before we opted out.

As to the notion that congress/president has the power to pass laws which alter NAFTA. Those changes are completely irrelavent and meaningless UNLESS Canada and Mexico agree to them also. Should I slow down here so you can gasp our loss of soveriegnty. For you see, via NAFTA we've agreed to be HELD TO THE RULE OF THE NAFTA TRIBUNALS. Do you for one second believe that an international tribunal will believe that NAFTA allows the U.S. to change clauses therein without the consent of the other NAFTA memebers, but Canada and Mexico does not have that power?

It really doesn't matter what the heck you of the U.S. Congress calls NAFTA. It is de-facto international law and WE ARE BEHOLDEN to it. Bush is trying to save the U.S. millions in penalties and fees.

NAFTA is not a treaty.

Place "NAFTA tribunal ruling" into a search engine and educate yourself. This monster has as much chance of being abolished as the Income Tax. Will this Supreme Court rule that a law could not be passed effecting trade without an official U.S. Treaty agreement? Great question, my money is no cowardice.

Thank you lawdog for grabbing a quote on what is going on here. From his post 54:
On February 6, 2001, a five-member international tribunal established by NAFTA declared the United States to be in breach of its obligations to Mexico because of restrictions on the entry of foreign trucks. The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) ignored U.S. domestic statutes (including the National Environmental Protection Act and the Clean Air Act) and ordered implementation of the decision.

As always, moeny talks.

[fella]

I hear that most of the Mexican trucks are headed for New Hampshire and South Carolina where demand for new drivers licenses with voter registration cards are sky rocketing.

[jpsb]

NAFTA is NOT a treaty according to the US Constitution which is the supreme law of the land here in the USA. "Article II: Section 2"

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur;

Now I know you anti-American globalists are enemies of US Constitution but to most of us in the USA it is the law of the land. You can take your unconstitutional international law and stick it where the sun don't shine.

[lawdog]

Actually my point was that the Constitutionally established process was not followed..I say they want to enforce it let them collect the money...

[untrained skeptic]

Duncan Hunter's fence was funded- the ONLY problem with it was Jorge Boosh. It was his sworn duty to defend the border, and he is derelict in doing his duty.

First the fence was authorized in legislation, but never funded that year.

Then they finally got congress to both authorize and fund it, but the Bush administration drug it's feet and built only a handful of miles of fencing last year.

Now congress has changed the language on how the fence is to be built in such a way that it makes it even easier for the administration to not build the fence, or to build an ineffective fence instead.

Can't blame this one on congress.

You can't blame it on congress alone, but they aren't significantly less guilty than Bush either.

[RGSpincich]

Seems like the Congresscritters deliberately did this

Precisely. They passed a law that would not allow funding for additional programs. If teamsters feel threatened by the existing program let them do what they always do....strike! What's the problem? A nationwide truck strike would kill any border crossing deal.

[Vanbasten]

Ditto on that. I don’t get the guy. He has to know american conservatives are fully opposed to this bologna...He can’t even say, ‘these are the jobs americans just don’t want to do’ this time!

[untrained skeptic]

Am I making sense here? It’s the only reason I can think of.

Bush has been dealing with a troubled economy since he took office. He inherited a recession. He inherited a mess caused by lax accounting rules and enforcement under the Clinton administration which eventually blew up with Enron and Worldcom. Clinton made a mess out of the economy during the dot com boom. He inherited a growing economy from his predecessors and not screwing up the economy sooner was the only thing he really accomplished during his presidency, but the growth wasn't healthy growth, and it led to the dot com bust, lots of accounting scandals, and even contributed to the housing boom and bust.

Bush's policies have in many ways helped, in some ways continued problematic policies of the Clinton administration, and in some ways made things worse (Medicare prescription plan).

Bush's economic policies have been far better than Clinton's, but Bush is to a large extent a big government liberal.

It really is amazing that we have kept the economy growing despite the dot com bust, accounting scandals, 9/11, the war on terror, and the housing bubble.

However, one of the ways the economy has been kept going has been by keeping inflation low. Two things that have contributed significantly to that have been trade with China (and other countries with low labor costs) and importing cheap labor from Mexico.

There are good and bad things about both of those. I don't argue for completely ending either, but the poor regulation of both is starting to cost us more than we gain from them.

We need limited, legal immigration.

We need to put more restrictions on what we trade with China by way of technology. We can't stop China from modernizing their economy, and as they do so, they are going to be increasingly an economic force to deal with. Stopping trade with them is also not in our best interests, because it isn't going to help us more than it hurts us. However, we do need to do our best to make them compete fairly and keep them from stealing intellectual property.

We also have to keep in mind that they are very likely going to be a real military threat in the future. We also have to recognize that while they don't appear to have stolen much military technology during the Bush administration, they stole a lot during the Clinton administration. They are trading partners, but they aren't our friends.