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  1. #1
    Administrator Jean's Avatar
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    Truck ban prompts Mexican retaliation

    Truck ban prompts Mexican retaliation
    Southern neighbor threatens tariffs on U.S. products

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Posted: March 16, 2009
    10:34 pm Eastern


    By Jerome R. Corsi
    © 2009 WorldNetDaily


    Mexico has announced a decision to increase tariffs on 90 U.S. products in retaliation for a congressional decision last week to remove the funds for the Department of Transportation's Mexican truck demonstration project, making it clear the NAFTA trucking is by no means finished.

    WND reported one day after signing the $410 billion omnibus funding bill into law, along with its provisions ending the DOT Mexican truck demonstration projects, President Obama instructed the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to work with Congress, the DOT, the state department and Mexican officials to come up with legislation to create "a new trucking project that will meet the legitimate concerns" of Congress under the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA.

    Then the Mexican Economy Department told a news conference in Mexico City that the new tariffs will affect about $2.4 billion in trade, impacting 90 agricultural and industrial products exported to Mexico from some 40 U.S. cities, according to the Associated Press.

    Teamster President Jim Hoffa characterized the Mexican government's threat as an "absurd overreaction," in a press release issued from his Washington, D.C. office.

    "The right response from Mexico would be to make sure its drivers and trucks are safe enough to use our highways without endangering our drivers," Hoffa said. "The border must stay closed until Mexico upholds its end of the bargain."

    The Teamsters estimate the U.S. government spent $500 million on the Mexican truck pilot program, which began in September 2007.

    "The U.S. needs to stop agreeing to trade deals like NAFTA that allow our own safety standards to deteriorate," Hoffa said.

    The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, or OOIDA, also reacted sharply to Mexico's threat.

    "I think before we get another pilot program or demonstration, Mexico has to get their laws up to United States standards and then we can talk about moving forward," said Rod Nofziger, OOIDA's director of government affairs.

    With the Obama administration likely to push forward to meet Mexico's demands before new tariffs are imposed, battle lines appear once again to be forming along lines of determining whether or not Mexican trucks and truck drivers will be able to comply with U.S. standards.

    The Mexican truck issue has been rancorous over the past two years as President Bush's Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters fought off repeated efforts by Congress to confine Mexican trucks to a narrow 20-mile commercial area north of the southern border.

    WND reported after the DOT Mexican truck demonstration project had begun an examination of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration database revealed hundreds of safety violations by Mexican long-haul rigs rolling on U.S. roads under the project.

    The contention of opponents to the Mexican truck demonstration project has been that Mexican trucks and truck drivers do not reliably meet U.S. standards.

    As WND reported, in a contentious Senate hearing last March, Sen. Dorgan in tight questioning got Peters to admit that Mexican driers were being designated at the border as "proficient in English" even though they could explain U.S. traffic signs only in Spanish.

    In the tense hearing, Dorgan accused Peters of being "arrogant" and in reckless disregard of a congressional vote to stop the Mexican trucking demonstration project by taking funds away.

    WND repoted opposition in the House was led by Rep. DeFazio, who in Sept. 2007, accused the Bush administration of having a "stealth plan" to allow Mexican long-haul rigs on U.S. roads.

    "This administration [of President George W. Bush] is hell-bent on opening our borders," DeFazio said at that time, "but has failed to require that Mexican drivers and trucks meet the same safety and security standards as U.S. drivers and trucks."

    Previously, Peters had argued the wording of the Dorgan amendment did not prohibit the Transportation Department from continuing a Mexican truck demonstration project that DOT had already begun, even if the measure prohibited DOT from starting any new Mexican truck demonstration project.

    Despite strong congressional opposition, the Department of Transportation under President Bush had announced it planned in its final months in office a decision to extend the Mexican truck demonstration project for another two years, in an attempt to force the incoming Obama administration to comply with a departmental decision that had been finalized before Obama Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood took office.

    Is Obama backtracking on his NAFTA campaign promises?

    The administration determination to open the U.S. to Mexican trucks raises serious questions about whether or not Obama intends to fulfill campaign promises that as a candidate he made to renegotiate NAFTA in order to get provisions more favorable to U.S. workers and U.S. jobs.

    During the presidential campaign, Obama was under fire after his economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee, a professor at the University of Chicago business school, traveled to Canada to reassure Canadians that Obama's campaign rhetoric against NAFTA was just campaign rhetoric.

    In the Ohio and Pennsylvania Democratic Party primaries, candidate Obama pledged to renegotiate NAFTA as part of his appeal to Ohio and Pennsylvania workers who have lost manufacturing jobs under the free trade agreements negotiated by Presidents Clinton and Bush.

    Now, Goolsbee is back in the White House, having taken a leave of absence from the University of Chicago after President Obama appointed him to serve as chief economist and staff director of the newly created Presidential Economic Recovery Advisory Board, chaired by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volker.

    President Obama also appointed Goolsbee to the Council of Economic Advisors, or CEA, which is charged with assisting in the development of White House economic policy.

    In his first trip to a foreign nation, President Obama traveled to Canada, where he used a press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to backtrack on his promise to renegotiate NAFTA.

    The Guardian reported Obama's comments in Canada "muddied his position" on NAFTA. <>P>Obama responded to a question at the joint press conference with Harper by saying that, "Now is a time where we have to be very careful about any signs of protectionism."

    Translated, this meant that any renegotiation of NAFTA by the Obama administration might involve fine-tuning some of the side agreements, not renegotiating NAFTA itself in any fundamental way.

    Then there was the issue of the "Buy American" provision that was inserted into the Obama administration's $787 billion economic stimulus plan.

    Canada was concerned that the provision could hurt Canadian steel exports to the United States and the EU screamed in general that the provision was antithetical to the spirit of the Transatlantic Economic Council which President Bush signed into effect with the EU in April 2008.

    The Obama administration did not object when language was added to the economic stimulus bill to specify that the "Buy American" provision would be interpreted to buy American when doing so was consistent with U.S. international trade obligations.

    In other words, the "Buy American" language in the bill no longer meant "buy American," if there was a free trade agreement that overrode that obligation.

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  2. #2
    Senior Member AirborneSapper7's Avatar
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    taking American job's - One truck driver at a time... we gave all the other jobs away to third world countrys ~ Mexico is just claiming it's share of the dead carcus
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  3. #3
    Senior Member carolinamtnwoman's Avatar
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    Re: Truck ban prompts Mexican retaliation

    With the Obama administration likely to push forward to meet Mexico's demands before new tariffs are imposed...

  4. #4
    Senior Member dragonfire's Avatar
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    It's time to tax remittances to Mexico
    Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!

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