Thread: Red China Opens NAFTA Ports in Mexico

Making sure Mexico gets it's slice of the pie.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=16077

Red China Opens NAFTA Ports in Mexico
by Jerome R. Corsi
Posted Jul 18, 2006


The Port Authority of San Antonio has been working actively with the Communist Chinese to open and develop NAFTA shipping ports in Mexico.

The plan is to ship containers of cheap goods produced by under-market labor in China and the Far East into North America via Mexican ports. From the Mexican ports, Mexican truck drivers and railroad workers will transport the goods across the Mexican border with Texas. Once in the U.S., the routes will proceed north to Kansas City along the NAFTA Super-Highway, ready to be expanded by the Trans-Texas Corridor, and NAFTA railroad routes being put in place by Kansas City Southern. Kansas City Southern’s Mexican railroads has positioned the company to become the “NAFTA Railroad.”

Right now, the cost of shipping and ground transportation can nearly double the total cost of cheap goods produced by Chinese and Far Eastern under-market labor. The plan is to reduce those transportation costs by as much as 50% by using Mexican ports.

Cost-savings will be realized by bringing the goods into the U.S. at mid-continent. Equally important is that the substantially reduced cost of using Mexican labor in the ports and to transport the goods once off-loaded. Mexican workers undercut Longshoremen Union port employees on the docks of Los Angeles and Long Beach, just as Mexican truck drivers undercut the Teamsters and Mexican railroad workers undercut United Transportation Union railroad workers. By using the Mexican ports, the international corporations managing this global trade are able to avoid the U.S. labor union workers who otherwise would unload the ships in west coast ports and transport the Asian containers into the heart of America by U.S. truckers or U.S. railroad ground transport moving east across the Rocky Mountains.

In April 2006, officials of the Port Authority of San Antonio traveled to China with representatives of the Free Trade Alliance San Antonio, the Port of Lazaro Cardenas, and Hutchinson Port Holdings to develop the Mexican ports logistics corridor. The goal of the meetings in China was described by the March 2006 e-newsletter of the Free Trade Alliance San Antonio:

In January of 2006, a collaboration of several logistics entities in the U.S. and Mexico began operation of a new multimodal logistics corridor for Chinese goods entering the U.S. Market. The new corridor brings containerized goods from China on either Maersk or CP Ships service to the Mexican Port of Lazaro Cardenas. There, the containers are off loaded by a new world class terminal operated by Hutchinson Ports based in Hong Kong. The containers are loaded onto the Kansas City Southern Railroad de Mexico where they move in-bound into the U.S. The containers clear U.S. customs in San Antonio, Texas and are processed for distribution.

Hutchinson Whampoa, a diversified company that manages property development and telecommunications companies, with operations in 54 countries and over 200,000 employees worldwide, is also one of the world’s largest port operators. Hutchinson Ports Holding (HPH) owns Panama Ports Co., which operates the ports of Cristobal and Balboa which are located at each end of the Panama Canal. HPH also operates the industrial deepwater port of Lazaro Cardenas in the Mexican State of Michoacan, as well as the Mexican port at Manzanillo, also along the west coast of Mexico, north of Lazaro Cardenas.

The Free Trade Alliance San Antonio was created in 1994 to promote the development of San Antonio’s inland port. The Free Trade Alliance San Antonio and the Port Authority of San Antonio are both members of NASCO, an acronym for the group’s formal name, the North American’s SuperCorridor Coalition, Inc. A Kansas City Star newspaper article posted on the website of the Kansas City SmartPort, another NASCO member, shows the importance of San Antonio’s inland port to the developing NAFTA Super-Highway and NAFTA railroad corridor emerging along Interstate I-35. According to reporter Rick Alm, San Antonio envisions the opening of a Mexican customs office in their inland port, a move that has been pioneered by Kansas City SmartPort:

Under this area’s arrangement [establishing a Mexican customs facility in the Kansas City SmartPort], freight would be inspected by Mexican authorities in Kansas City and sealed in containers for movement directly to Mexican destinations with fewer costly border delays. The arrangement would become even more lucrative when Asian markets that shipped through Mexican ports were figured into the mix. “We applaud the efforts of Kansas City and the Mexican government in developing a Mexican customs facility there,” said Jorge Canavati, marketing director for Kelly USA [former name for San Antonio’s inland port established on the former site of Kelly Air Force Base]. He said a Mexican customs function for KellyUSA “is something that is still far away … We may be looking at that” in the future.

A world map on the North American Inland Ports Network (NAIPN) on the NASCO website graphically highlights in yellow the trade routes from China across the Pacific ocean, to Mexico at the ports of Manzanillo and Lazaro Cardenas, entering the U.S. through San Antonio.

A Free Trade Alliance San Antonio 2005 summary of goals and accomplishments documents the direct involvement of the Bush administration into the development of San Antonio’s inland port NAFTA plans. The following were among the bulleted points:

Organized four marketing trips to Mexico and China to promote Inland Port San Antonio and met with prospects. Met with over 50 prospects/leads during these trips.
Continued to pursue cross border trucking by advocating a pilot project with at least two major Mexican exporters as potential subjects. Worked with U.S. Department of Transportation, Dept. of Homeland Security and U.S. Trade Representative on this concept.
Working with Mexican ports to develop new cargo routes through the Ports of Manzanillo and Lazaro Candenas.
San Antonio is on the route of the Trans-Texas Corridor planned to be built along I-35 from Laredo, Tex., on the Mexican Border, north through Dallas, en route to the Oklahoma border.
The development of a China-Mexico trade route reflects a fundamental shift since the passage of NAFTA. At the peak in the mid-1990s, there were some three thousand maquiladoras located in northern Mexico, employing over 1 million Mexicans in low-paying, assembly sweat-shops. Today, even Mexican labor is not cheap enough for the international corporations seeking only to maximize profits. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, that bubble has burst and the maquiladora activity is down over 25 percent from the peak as the international corporations have found even cheaper labor in China.

As the Port of San Antonio evidences, linking NAFTA inland ports with NAFTA super-highways and NAFTA railroads is an important part of the development plan for the emerging global free trade economy. San Antonio officials by working with the communist Chinese to open Mexican ports for NAFTA trade evidence that plan. International capitalists are now determined to exploit cheap Mexican labor, not so much for manufacturing and assembly, but as a means of saving port and transportation costs in the North American market.

The Bush Administration seems on-board with the plan, aiming to increase corporate capital gains in NAFTA markets rather than worrying about the adverse consequences to Mexican low-skilled workers or to the U.S. labor movement that transferring increasing amounts of manufacturing and assembly to China entails.

And here's another one to worry about.....


Truck drivers from India to take U.S. jobs?
Union protests plan as attempt to undercut 'hard-working Americans'

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Posted: July 21, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern


By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com



An American company is recruiting long-haul truck drivers from India with the goal of placing them with U.S. trucking firms.

The Teamsters Union strongly opposes the plan by Gagan Global LLC of Garnerville, N.Y.

Teamsters Union spokesman Galen Munroe told WND the plan "is yet another example of corporations exploiting a visa program to replace highly trained, hard-working Americans with cheap labor from overseas."

Gagan Global has contracted with the Indian state government of Andra Pradesh and its Overseas Manpower Consultancy to run a training school in the Asian country.


Gagan Global CEO Philip Gagan told WND a first batch of 200 Indian truck drivers has been recruited to attend the school in preparation for work in the U.S.

"We are recruiting Indian truck drivers," Gagan confirmed to WND. "We are very demanding on our requirements to get into the school. The requirements are that you have to have five years of heavy driving experience on tractor-trailer trucks, you have to be HIV-negative, have a clean police record, verifiable references that the government in India can verify."

What about the ability to speak English?

"The Indian truck drivers have to be able to read and understand English," Gagan explained. "We like them to speak English. They all speak pigeon-English, mostly what they learned in schools."

How does Gagan Global know that the Indian drivers will be able to read road signs or communicate with other drivers on the road?

"We know that if they can read English and understand what they are reading," Gagan told WND, "then we think they can learn enough English in the four-months training program to be able to be productive in the U.S."

Gagan argued that the reason he created the company was to address the growing shortage in the U.S. for long-haul drivers.

"There's a massive shortage of long-haul truck drivers in the U.S.," Gagan said. "Long-haul truck drivers get home four days a month. There just aren't enough Americans who want to do that kind of work."

A May 2005 study conducted for the American Trucking Association argues that there is "already a shortage of long-haul heavy-duty truck drivers equal to about 1.5 percent of the over-the-road workforce, or about 20,000 drivers."

The driver shortfall is projected to reach 114,000 by 2014. Another 219,000 new truck drivers "must be found to replace drivers currently of ages 55 and older who will retire over the next 10 years and to replace those in younger groups who will leave the occupation."

Teamster Union spokesman Munroe strongly objected. In an e-mail to WND, he wrote:


While there is currently a shortage of long-haul drivers, the problem lies with corporations like Gagan Global that are championing the race to the bottom for American workers. If corporations would treat their employees fairly and offer competitive wages with decent benefit packages, this shortage would disappear.

Gagan Global is in the process of applying to the Department of Labor to get H-2B visas for the Indian drivers. H-2B visas are designed to be issued only when there are no qualified and willing U.S. workers available for the job. Gagan acknowledges that no H-2B visas have yet been issued to Indian truck drivers training in India with his company.

Regarding the issuance of H-2B visas, Munroe wrote WND:


Gagan Global has twisted the intent of the H-2B visa program to fit their desire for a fatter bottom line. The assertion that there are no American workers who are willing to take long-haul truck driving jobs is absurd. It would be more accurate to say they do not want to be exploited by taking poor-paying, long-haul jobs at nonunion companies.

On the company website, Gagan Global explains why Indian drivers are suitable to help address the shortage in long-haul drivers:


We also found that while the average long-haul truck driver makes between $50,000 and $90,000 a year, these truck drivers make far less, and work a whole lot more. So what we have here are people who are never shy of work, extremely friendly and cooperative, and most of all, tough guys who are more than up to handling the American trucks.

Why is Gagan Global so sure the Indian drivers will be able to be successful on U.S. highways? The company website explains the Indian drivers "on an average, have anywhere between 10 and 25 years of experience driving trucks for a living. These drivers have driven long-haul trucks in extreme conditions and terrain and on roads that are anything but like the freeways in the U.S."

The economic incentive for the Indian truck drivers is obvious. Gagan explains:


These [Indian truck drivers] want to work. They want to get into their trucks and work every hour that they are legally allowed to work. They only have a one-year period, plus a one-year extension under their visa to work here. Then they have to go home for six months and apply for a new visa. The Indian truck driver can earn in a day in the U.S. what it may take two months to earn in India. They don’t have families here and they don't care about time-off. If the Indian drivers come here work hard, they can go home with maybe $100,000, which is five lifetimes of money back home in India.

Gagan explained to WND that his company’s goal was not to undercut U.S. truck drivers:


We’re not here to take jobs away from Americans. If they drive for a Teamster organization, they will join the Teamsters. Our Indian drivers have to come into a company and be paid exactly what the American drivers are being paid in that company. They have to receive every benefit and they have to be treated exactly the same. We want them to get the highest paid jobs they can get. We have rejected as clients a couple of companies that have approached us because they want to hire them as trainees and pay them about half as much per mile as they pay U.S. drivers.

The Teamsters' Munroe objected to Gagan Global's program, concluding, "It is time for American companies to invest in the American workforce. Outsourcing will only quicken the demise of the middle class

Here is Gagan Global's email address info@gaganglobal.com
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/artic ... E_ID=51162