Open borders, trade deals are ruinous for America

Last Updated: July 13. 2011 1:00AM.

James P. Hoffa

For most Americans, the recession has not ended.

Wages are falling and millions can't find jobs.

The grim June jobs report showed things aren't getting better. The unemployment rate actually went up, with 14.1 million Americans officially out of work.

The last thing American workers need are trade deals that put more of them out of work and lower their wages. And yet that is what our government is doing — not once, but four times.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood went to Mexico last week to sign a deal that opens our borders to Mexican trucks. In reporting the agreement, the press was strangely silent about the 40,000 people killed in Mexican drug wars since 2007. The media made no mention of our widening trade deficit with Mexico since NAFTA was signed in 1992, nor did reporters say anything about the 700,000 jobs lost since then.

Three more job-killing trade deals are in the hopper, and you can bet the news media will swallow whole the phony claims made about them by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other groups. Congress is now considering trade agreements with Colombia, where trade unionists are routinely murdered; Panama, a well-known tax haven; and South Korea, in the biggest trade deal since NAFTA.

It seems our trade policy is of the corporation, by the corporation and for the corporation.

Upon signing the Mexican truck agreement, LaHood issued a statement: "By opening the door to long-haul trucking between the U.S. and Mexico, America's third-largest trading partner, we will create jobs and opportunity for our people and support economic development in both nations."

I don't think anyone on the planet believes that. Polls show most are skeptical that globalization is helping the economy. The deal with Mexico will flood the U.S. with cheap labor, further eroding our living standards and workers rights. It will undermine border security and endanger motorists. It ignores corruption among Mexican law enforcement, when that law enforcement is exactly what the safety of the program depends on.

Opening the border is simply a surrender to the trucking industry and to multinational corporations — it certainly isn't to the United States or to its people. Companies don't care that Mexico can't hold up its end of the bargain. There's no way that Mexico can offer U.S. carriers the same access to its roads that Mexico gets from the U.S. No American trucking company or trucker wants to haul freight to Mexico and risk kidnapping or death.

The Teamsters have fought repeatedly against the unpatriotic, anti-American attempt to undermine our road safety, our security and our economy by opening the border to dangerous trucks. We have fought against trade deals that lower our standard of living, erode our national security and contribute to economic inequality. We will continue to fight because we love our country, even if the corporations don't.

James P. Hoffa is president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

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