US Trade Representative Says Mexican Trucks May Return To US

Source: DOW JONES

By Laurence Iliff, Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

MEXICO CITY -(Dow Jones)- The Obama administration has taken the first step toward renewing a pilot program that allows Mexican truckers to operate within the U.S., as stipulated in the North American Free Trade Agreement, but still must work with Congress on fashioning a new program, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said Tuesday.

"President Obama has made it plain that we would like to see this issue over the ability of Mexican trucks to move freely throughout the U.S. resolved as soon and as thoughtfully as possible," Kirk said at a news conference with Mexican Economy Minister Gerardo Ruiz.

In the 2009 appropriations bill, the U.S. Congress blocked funding for the pilot program, but the Obama administration persuaded legislators to consider a reworked program.

"With the offending language now being removed from the most recent appropriations bill, we have at least the green light to go forward and start those consultations with Congress" and other interested parties, Kirk said.

Mexico would be consulted throughout the process, he added.

Read more: http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/stock-market-news-story.aspx?storyid=201002091716dowjonesdjonline000508&title=us-trade-representative-says-mexican-trucks-may-return-to-us

Geez, when does this stop?

maintained. Not very well along the border.

course there is that "safety check" that i`m sure local law enforcement will be doing...

...provided Mexican trucks meet our highway safety standards.

I think Canadian and Mexican trucks should be treated equally.

i don't want to see this resolved, no i don't want mexican trucks barreling down our interstates. it's an invitation to smuggle even more goods and humans across the border. if the president cares about the will of the people he'll detour this nonsense STAT.

Yes under the previous agreement American truckers could drive in Mexico but who wants to. Its too unsafe and we don't need 1000's of Mexican trucks on our highways.. We have 10,000's of underemployed America truckers ready to do the job needed to get the goods from the Mexican border to your city and town..

My gosh, how many truckers are out of work?

I thought that Obama was finally going to focus on jobs, but it appears that he meant Mexican jobs.

I won't even go into safety and smuggling.

I did not support NAFTA. We already had a trade agreement with Canada, which was and is a developed country.

Mexico simply wasn't and isn't.

The EU did not let members become full partners until they had their governments and economies up to EU standards.

It was corporate greed that prevented us from doing the same thing with Mexico.

Cheap labor and no regulations wins every time.

I've simply had enough of this.

"We already had a trade agreement with Canada, which was and is a developed country.

Mexico simply wasn't and isn't.":wtf:

prove it isn't. What criteria do you want? Infrastructure? Education? Credit? Rural electrification? Communication? Universities?

Lots of poverty, sure but not like we don't have it. Was just in Hermosillo a couple weeks ago. Virtually NO difference from Phx, AZ from what I could see.

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Ford makes a lot of stuff there (Ford Fusion, Mercury Milan, et al)

It's amazing what manufacturing can do to build up a town. It seems we have forgotten that in the USA.

And since I mentioned a comparison between Mexico and Canada, please provide the same stats for Canada.

Also address the effect of migration on Mexico's standard of living.

so does Canada and the US

Not sure what stats you want, my point is Mexico is a perfectly modern, industrialized, DEVELOPED country. In the last decade I have seen massive infrastructure improvements in the areas I have been going to (mostly northern Mexico, especially Chihuahua). Road paving, schools and hospitals built, electricity into the Sierras. In the cities there is tons of new building, shops, homes, malls - all the usual consumer crap one associates with modern society. Hell the majority of the vehicles on the road are newer than mine now. - that is another big change - consumer credit arrived in this period and there are car dealers in many smaller towns where 20 years ago there was moslty VW's and old American pick-ups everywhere.

Anybody that has traveled on the long distance busses can't help but be impressed and to wonder why we can't have something half as good.

Are you some kind of geography teacher? "Also address the effect of migration on Mexico's standard of living." I'm not doing a writing assignment for you. YOU asserted Mexico wasn't a developed country, how about YOU back up YOUR comment.

I'm not a geography teacher, but I am interested in the subject. I don't have time at the moment, but I will do some research at a later date.

We will travel more on long distance buses when we don't have enough money to travel by auto or airplane. That's the way it was during the '70s economic bad times. Give that some thought.

it has a non-existent labor movement, a polluted Mexico City that would rival China's worst excesses, and centuries' old oligarchies and plutocracies. The Mexican people as a whole notwithstanding (who deserve 1000% more), the nation of Mexico, its government, standard-of-living, and security can in no way be considered "developed" when compared to Canada. And yes, after all these years, it's still true than you "can't drink the water". There is a reason why multinationals move their factories down to Mexico rather than up to Canada.

You might find a remote village with bad water, but not most places in Mexico.

Mexico City is in a valley with about 25 million residents. Yeah, it has pollution problems.

The prohibition-related violence notwithstanding, the crime rate is down.

It's probably best for non-locals to stick with bottled water when traveling in Mexico.

Just about every town and city in Mexico has a water treatment plant. As I said, I've been drinking the water there for more than 20 years. No problems.

yes, even here - just the chemical/mineral compositional differences can upset the stomach.

Your friend could have picked up a parasite from many sources beside tap water.(and did they get an actual diagnosis or was there just traveler's diarrhea and this is an anecdotal self diagnosis?)

Seriously, I just don't know much about Canada - but I am pretty familiar with Chihuahua and Sonora, and I have been to Mexico City - although that was over 25 years ago - even then it was a pretty modern city. Mexico doesn't have as large a middle class as we do - well, maybe I should say DID - but it is growing.

I drink the water except up in the mountains, of course if you saw my water system (here in the US) you would have to concede much of Mexico's is better.:P

I don't know that much about labor in Mexico but it may partly be that so much of the economy has been small business or agriculture for so long. I do know there has been a strong intellectual and student "force" for a long time.

I was just there in October, I heard of a couple supposedly drug related incidents but even the "new" checkpoint that was there a year and half before was gone. And like anywhere in the world, rumors and gossip often trumps facts, so those may or may not have been true. I hardly saw any evidence of it at all much less being "wracked end-to-end" - I did see plenty of evidence that the hysteria and fearmongering of the media and the ignorant were having terrible effects on tourism. (beyond the effects of tanked economies) There is more violence in the streets of Phx than almost anywhere in Mexico. About the only place I would avoid is Juarez and I doubt I would even do that.

My disagreement wasn't that Mexico is completely comparable to the US or Canada, but that it is hardly an undeveloped country.

joined the EU in 2007. The EU admits poor countries because they think it helps those countries become more prosperous, not as a reward for being prosperous. They want peace and prosperity on the European continent, and have done a pretty good job of achieving it.

It is true that the EU makes prospective new members meet many qualification regarding such things are rule of law, limited corruption, open and democratic governments, open markets, etc., but they do not have to be "rich" or anything close. When new member countries are admitted, they not only have free trade with the other EU members, but open immigration as well. That's a deal that, if we offered it to Mexico, not only Teabaggers, Minutemen and republicans would go ballistic over, but many progressives and Democrats, as well. Often American progressives often don't think like European progressives.

You can see the problems now.

We'll see how well things work out with Bulgaria and Rumania.

What's the big deal about dropping off the trailers at the border areas (on EITHER side) and have each country's own trucking company / system / drivers take it from there? I mean, that way jobs are maintained in Mexico as well as in the United States, right?

On the other hand, if our drivers are driving in both Mexico and Canada, than yeah, fair's fair. Their truckers ought to drive inside this country too. Otherwise, just stop everyone at the border, stage and transfer, and life goes on. Heck, even the concept of free trade is preserved.

Obama isn't a bad guy,he fought Goldman and he did try and pass a health care plan.

Yet he fails at his role of being an idealist progressive leader,the moment he picked Hillary Clinton was the moment he got drawn in by the more moneyed parts of his party.

Clinton isn't a negative influence but she isn't much of a positive one.

The Teamsters are one of the last strong Unions we have left. But our party is pushing the Rethug bullshit.

We could go the "cowboy diplomacy" route - do whatever we want regardless of our treaties and other international agreements - but that wouldn't be "Democratic".

For better or worse Obama seems determined to interact with the rest of the world through diplomacy and negotiation rather than unilateral action. We might want him to be more "Bush-like" (with very different goals) in terms of his tactics, but that does not seem to be the type of person he is.

:shrug:

because some rich pricks in this country decides what is good for our country, even though it takes jobs away from US truck drivers.

:shrug:

The embargo is just administratively created, is a violation of our trade agreement, and totally unfair to Mexican truckers.