Posted on 09/11/2007 5:09:04 PM PDT by ruination
WASHINGTON - The Senate voted Tuesday to ban Mexican trucks from U.S. roadways, rekindling a more than decade-old trade dispute with Mexico.
By a 74-24 vote, the Senate approved a proposal by Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., prohibiting the Transportation Department from spending money on a North American Free Trade Agreement pilot program giving Mexican trucks access to U.S. highways.
The proposal is part of a $106 billion transportation and housing spending bill that the Senate hopes to vote on later this week. The House approved a similar provision to Dorgan's in July as part of its version of the transportation spending bill.
Supporters of Dorgan's amendment argued the trucks are not yet proven safe. Opponents said the U.S. is applying tougher standards to Mexican trucks than to Canadian trucks and failing to live up to its NAFTA obligations.
Until last week, Mexican trucks were restricted to driving within a commercial border zone that stretched about 20 miles from the U.S.-Mexican boundary, 75 miles in Arizona. One truck has traveled deep into the U.S. interior as part of the pilot program.
Blocking the trucks would help Democrats curry favor with organized labor, an important ally for the 2008 presidential elections.
"Why the urgency? Why not stand up for the (truck) standards that we've created and developed in this country?" Dorgan asked.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who drafted a Republican alternative to Dorgan's amendment, said the attempt to block the trucks appeared to be about limiting competition and may amount to discrimination against Mexico.
"I would never allow an unsafe truck on our highways, particularly Texas highways," he said.
Under NAFTA, Mexico can seek retaliation against the U.S. for failing to adhere to the treaty's requirements, including retaining tariffs on goods that the treaty eliminates, said Sidney Weintraub, a professor emeritus at the University of Texas LBJ School of Public Affairs in Austin.
The trucking program allows up to 100 Mexican carriers to send their trucks on U.S. roadways for delivery and pickup of cargo. None can carry hazardous material or haul cargo between U.S. points.
So far, the Department of Transportation has granted a single Mexican carrier, Transportes Olympic, access to U.S. roads after a more than decade-long dispute over the NAFTA provision opening up the roadways.
One of the carrier's trucks crossed the border in Laredo, Texas last week and delivered its cargo in North Carolina on Monday and was expected to return to Mexico late this week after a stop in Decatur, Ala.
The transportation bill is S. 1789.
I can only hope the laws will be enforced. I want to see one get inspected at the Manchester NH weigh station, they carry 3 foot probes for the drivers
Breakfast!
Mexico allows its state owned oil company to have a monopoly, I guess they believe they are superior by birth to foreign oil companies who could do a better and cheaper job
do US truckers have free access to Mexico??
its not just truckers its every job. Every single job in the US must have their wages slashed by 80% to come in line with international norms
I don't embrace foreign lawbreakers, but apparently you do. So, do you embrace American lawbreakers too?
Would you take an 80% pay cut so a foreigner won’t get your job?
“And you really don’t see the racism dripping from your posts?”
I have a really hard time telling if that person is for real or not. Calling them joses and basically cotten pickers all the time, and he’s on their side?
You are inefficient, your position is now a $6 an hour job, meet Angel Cardinas and his translator, your going to train him before you go
so your saying that Mexicans are superior to Americans now?? This is just evolution?
No problem, as long as these people are legally employed to do these jobs.
Yeaaaaa.... now let’s actually pull them across the scales and see what they really look like.
And while we’re at it, let’s test the drivers for “special coffee” — which you can get in any Mexican truck stop.
As I said, I’ve talked to Mexicans (now legal immigrants) who started their trucking careers in Mexico. They think that the US is stupid to allow Mexican trucks on US roads. Now, if a Mexican who is now a US citizen, and who driving a hay truck that picks up hay off our farm is telling me this, who am I going to believe?
Some bureaucrat who has no direct knowledge of the situation?
Or a guy who grew up in Mexico, started his trucking career there and knows exactly how they operate, because that’s how *he* used to operate when he was employed by a Mexican trucking company?
The irony here, is that Dorgan is from North Dakota, a Right-to-work State!
You have to understand that this dane thing will not, and CAN not see any difference between legal and illegal. To it, all immigration, legal or not, is the same. It’s like a logical set theory for it. All immigration = good.
It does not matter the method or legality of it at all. That’s a completely irrelevent issue to it.
Basically it is an internationalist communist in that regard. A purist one. No borders exist. Onlt workers uniting under a global toilet.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! What an opportunity! (Think he is cheap? just watch!)
Better yest, imagine if your toy company was caught
consistently painting children's toys with lead based paints
in violation of U.S. Law.
Not only would you be shut down but I bet your A$$ would
go to prison.
Now, go to China and try to open a PRIVATE freight carrier.
Good luck.
This is not free trade.
Since when is free trade include foreign workers coming
into OUR nation and displacing citizen workers?
No, you import our wheat and we import your brooms.
Does any one here understand that the next move will be
to relocate all the ports of entry to Mexico, do
minimal value added whatever to the imports and then
run them right across the boarder under NAFTA?
Where is our equal opportunity?
This is not Free Trade!
More proof that NAFTA always was, always is, always will be a POS.
What U.S. truckers in their right mind would WANT to transport goods to their destination in Mexico? It would take them YEARS to get to their drop-off point. First they would have to play dodge-em with all the 1950’s vintage cars that inhabit the roadways of Mexico. And all the break-downs associated with old cars. Or the farm vehicles that go 1 mile an hour on a good day. Plus another good chunk of Mexicans drive like they are drunk, which may very well be true. Erratic driving is the norm. Then of course, there will be the set-up robberies of our trucks, with the help of the Federales to make it easier, with phony traffic stops.
Meanwhile, back here in the good old USA, we will have Mexican drivers going to their destination points in our country who don’t know our highways, the rules of the road only a bit, who may imbibe drugs or drink on whim, who could be terrorists, delivering bomb payloads instead of goods, and taking who knows what drugs or contraband back and forth over the border. While putting U.S. truckers out of business. Such a good deal for us, si senor?
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