Despite the objections of organized labor, and other special interest groups in the U.S., it appears certain that one of the last impediments to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is about to be lifted…with conditions.
     “It’s about time Mexican truckers were provided with the free access to our market promised in the Agreement,” said Lorna Desmond, a San Diego-based freight forwarder.
     “We can only applaud the Bush Administration for finally making good on its word.”
     Trade and transport professionals across the border were equally pleased.
     According to sources, as many as 100 trucking companies in Mexico were already lined up to begin moving freight during the year-long pilot program. Government officials were also jubilant.
     “We need to enter a new stage to make North America and Mexico competitive in the global marketplace,” stated Deputy Transport Minister, Manuel Rodriguez.
     Up until now, no clear schedule had been established for the pilot program permitting free cross-border trucking. Mexican transport ministry spokesmen say that beginning in July as many as 25 trucking companies will be added to the program each month through 2008.
     Labor union officials and other critics of the plan have hardly stopped efforts to slow its implementation, however.
     The Teamsters, which represents 1.4 million U.S. and Canadian drivers, was instrumental in pushing ahead new limits.
     In late April, the powerful union filed a lawsuit against the Transportation Department's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration in California’s federal court.
     As a consequence, the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Washington, DC, voted unanimously to establish benchmarks for safe operation of the trucks and oversight of the program.
     “The pilot program has holes in it you could drive a truck through,” declared Teamsters President James P. (Jim) Hoffa (right).
     “Nowhere does the Bush administration state that every truck must be physically inspected before being allowed to travel freely throughout the U.S.
     “Nowhere does it describe what criteria will be used to judge the program a failure or a success.”
     Thanks to pending legislation, however, that may be changed.
     “The original bill was introduced last month by Rep. Nancy Boyda of Kansas, but was amended and broadened in May’s markup by a manager’s amendment offered by Highways and Transit Subcommittee Chairman Peter A. DeFazio (Ore.).
     It sets out a number of safety issues that must be satisfied before the program can begin, and sets up an independent review panel to oversee the program.
     That oversight will then be communicated to the Department of Transportation’s Inspector General, and to Congress.
     “This bill will require that Mexican drivers and trucks meet the strict safety standards for a pilot program, and will allow the oversight panel to modify or terminate the program at any time that they determine the safety of the public has been put in jeopardy,” said DeFazio. “Launching this pilot program without safeguards to ensure compliance with U.S. safety laws would have been a recipe for disaster on our roads.”
     The Teamsters were hardly pacified by this development, though. Hoffa accused the Bush administration of “ignoring the American people in its zeal to open our borders to unsafe Mexican trucks,” and continued to demand this “reckless” program been stopped to protect U.S. motorists.
Patrick Burnson