A dozen years after passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the U.S. and Mexican governments are at last poised to implement, at least on a pilot basis, one of its key provisions — across-the-border trucking. But the ongoing controversy over NAFTA and a fierce campaign for protectionist measures by the AFL-CIO may imperil any future steps toward further easing restrictions on international trade.
Cross-border trucking was supposed to begin as part of NAFTA, a three-way agreement between the U.S., Canada and Mexico. But while Canadian trucking companies and their drivers have full access to U.S. highways — and U.S. companies enjoy reciprocal rights in Canada — then-President Bill Clinton in 1995 blocked Mexican trucks from carrying cargo beyond a commercial zone of about 25 miles at certain border crossings, such as San Diego and El Paso — where their cargos must be reloaded onto U.S. trucks driven by U.S. drivers.
Clinton said he acted out of fear that unsafe Mexican trucks would become a hazard on U.S. highways. But the action was a clear victory for the Teamsters Union, whose members feared they might have to compete with Mexican drivers who receive lower pay and fewer benefits than their U.S. counterparts.
In an attempt to break the resulting 12-year deadlock, the Bush administration and the Mexican government negotiated a pilot program to allow as many as 100 Mexican trucking companies to freely haul their cargo anywhere within the U.S. for the next year, while U.S. firms receive similar rights in Mexico.
Under the plan, Mexican trucks and drivers would be required to meet regulations at least as strict as, and sometimes stricter than, those imposed on U.S. firms operating in this country. It’s an important provision.
Besides inspection of the vehicles themselves, Mexican drivers are subject to the same drug and alcohol tests as U.S. drivers. Meanwhile, law enforcement officials have stepped up nationwide enforcement of a law on the books since the 1970s requiring interstate truck and bus drivers to have a basic understanding of written and spoken English. There must be no mistaking our traffic signs.
We hope those rules are adequate to address whatever legitimate safety concerns prompted Clinton’s 1995 freeze. But just as clearly, they don’t address the economic concerns of U.S. Teamsters and independent drivers. Thus the Teamsters, backed by the Sierra Club and the liberal group Public Citizen, sued to block the pilot program from going into effect. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Friday denied their request for an injunction, clearing the way for trucks to roll as early as today.
The move is an important step toward allowing the kind of free trade in services that NAFTA has long fostered in manufactured goods, leading to $330 billion in trade between the U.S. and Mexico last year — 70 percent of which was moved by truck. But it comes at a time of mounting opposition, led by the AFL-CIO, to trade liberalization policies.
We urge the Bush administration to vigorously enforce the trucking safety rules, both to protect American motorists and to avoid giving the protectionist lobby further fuel for its anti-trade campaign.
