Posted on 03/23/2009 2:28:30 PM PDT by GOPGuide
Anyone worried that, once in charge, Democrats wouldn’t be vigilant in protecting our southern border can relax. The grave threat of Mexican long-haul truckers has been shut down. With any luck, Mexicans will never have the temerity to attempt to deliver commercial goods into the United States again.
At least such is the fervid hope of the Teamsters, the fiercest adversary the Mexicans have faced since Pres. James Polk sent Winfield Scott south in the Mexican-American War. The union can’t abide Mexican trucks because they represent competition, and so they must be blocked — legal obligations, economic rationality, and diplomatic sense aside.
We agreed with Mexico in the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994 to open the border states to Mexican trucking by 1995 and the entire country by 2000. Otherwise a fairly stalwart free-trader, Bill Clinton never delivered on that obligation. A NAFTA panel in 2001 ruled that we were in the wrong. Given how sacrosanct Democrats consider treaties, this should have settled the matter — if it weren’t for the outsized power of the Teamsters.
Eighteen months ago, Pres. George W. Bush implemented a pilot program under which 100 Mexican trucks were operating in the U.S. No sooner was it in place than Democrats set out to kill it, finally succeeding in the $410 billion omnibus spending bill; already infamous for its 8,500 earmarks, the law now also has a shameful trade dispute to its name.
The stated ground for killing the pilot program is safety. Anti-trade politicians talk of Mexican trucks as if they were the Tripod fighting machines deployed by the Martians in War of the Worlds. The interstate-highway system itself will be hard-pressed to survive their onslaught. Polk should have finished the job and annexed all of Mexico, just so we could have pre-empted this danger decades before the invention of the automobile.
The safety issue is a red herring. Despite a ban on them dating from the 1980s, 800 Mexican trucks were allowed to continue operating in the U.S. “A survey by the Arizona Republic newspaper found that those Mexican trucks allowed to operate in the U.S. have a superior safety record compared with U.S.-owned trucks,” Daniel Griswold of the Cato Institute writes. The Department of Transportation found no safety problem with the trucks here under the new pilot program either.
The Teamsters simply want to protect their economic turf. The current arrangement is so comically byzantine, it’s worthy of a “Monty Python” skit spoofing the irrationalities of feudal Europe. Mexican trucks carrying goods into the U.S. have to drop them in a commercial zone 20 miles within the U.S. border, where they’re eventually loaded back onto U.S. trucks and delivered to their destinations.
This creates extra jobs, but at the cost of some $200 million to $400 million a year in economic inefficiency. We’re lucky that rickshaw operators don’t have a union as powerful as the Teamsters or all the goods would have to be transported around the country under human power.
Our third-largest trading partner, the Mexicans have retaliated by saying they will impose tariffs on 90 U.S. industrial and agricultural products, worth $2.4 billion in 2007. So the cost of this “victory” against Mexican trucking will be borne by farmers and manufacturers around the country. The tit for tat is unlikely to escalate into a full-blown trade war, but we send a dreadful signal by violating a trade agreement at a time when protectionist pressures are rising worldwide.
Pres. Barack Obama says he’ll find a way to address Mexico’s complaint consistent with safety concerns. Since those concerns are a proxy for flat-out opposition to Mexican trucking, it’s not clear how that’s possible.
Democrats profess to love our allies — unless they want to trade with us. Mexico joins South Korea and Colombia among friends we are stiffing on trade. Perhaps if they got together and started an illicit nuclear-weapons program, they would be treated with more solicitude.
With "Republicans" like National Review's, who needs liberals...
national review, townhall.com, populated by pinkshirt countryclub republicans like fred barnes etc.
Open-borders fellow travellers like the Wall Street Journal. Kudlow is one as well. I donated to Club for Growth until CEO Steve Moore came out for open-borders. The checks quickly stopped.
I used to like NR but they are sinking now. i do not waste my time going there anymore.
Poor Bill Buckley - he was a good man.
If I wish to buy goods from Mexico, you are a tyrant if you stand in the way of MY RIGHT to do so.
Protectionism caused the Great Depression.
Protectionism, under Smoot-Hauley, made the Depression deeper and longer than it needed to be.
Cut the corporate tax rate, we have some of the highest corporate taxes in the world!
Cut regulations, cut “green” mandates, provide some liability protection and the United States will win in the global economy.
Protectionism is for tyrants and banana republics.
Free trade and open borders are NOT the same thing.
The Mexican trucks don’t have as good safety inspection as the US.
They are not safe for our roads.
And I support trade, but letting dangerous trucks on our road is NOT trade.
Protectionisim is not Obamas goal, more beauracracy, to oversee forigen trucking is, thats more jobs he “created”.
The Mexican trucks don’t have as good safety inspection as the US.
Really .... Who does the inspections for those trucks in the program to ply the interior US roads?...... The US or Mexico? I thought it was the US inspectors, if so and they are fudging then they need to be held accountable.
How can they check and track ALL the thousands of Mexican trucks that will be unleashed on US highways everyday.
This Jackass Lowry probably doesn’t even know how stringent the safety rules are for American truck drivers because he’s been sitting on his ass counting money and typing on a keyboard in New Yaawwwwk his whole life.
The Teamsters simply want to protect their economic turf. .. and those who want Mexicans to replace "expensive" American drivers just want to keep on trucklin' to Mexico.
Send more U.S. taxpayer-subsidized cheap labor, please!. Obama's running up trillions of dollars of new debt.. just what we need. More "guests" (cheap-labor families) to feed, house, educate, heal, entertain. . . .
OK, I will support the ban on Mexican trucks IF the Teamsters give up their support for Card Check.
Not every trucker is a Teamster, and I would still rather have these jobs for Americans than cheap labor.
Wow..... How do they check and track the tens of thousands of American trucks that are unleashed on US highways every day?
FWIW, the "Mexican trucks" in question have to cross the border. The safety inspections can be (and are) performed at the border.
Something that never seems to be mentioned is these discussions is: what about American trucks going into Mexico?
Do they?
Do they want to deliver into Mexico?
Is it considered safe?
Or would the cheaper Mexican drivers get all the freight in each direction?
Anyone know about US drivers going into Mexico?
How dare you state facts!!!!!!
You can’t do rigorous safety inspections at the border everyday, not enough agents trained for inspections.
Also missing is the fact that the trucking program was a pilot program that was due to end a long time ago. They can throw all the tantrums they want.
NR has many authors who oppose immigration, NAFTA, etc. Conservative populists get used to agreeing with conservatives on so many issues, we forget to recognize taht there often are conservative arguments for both sides of an issue. As much as I think that Mexican truckers are an absolute menace on the highways, and the congressmen who support them are selling out our own workers, there are certainly conservative justifications for this argument.
And I think that’s the problem with the label “conservative.” It doesn’t always capture the essence of an issue.
How can they check and track ALL the thousands of Mexican trucks that will be unleashed on US highways everyday.
Well maybe they will be thousands and then again maybe not. The initial test phase was 100 trucks. The trucks are required to meet the same standards, safety, ins. etc that US carriers meet.
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