Mexico-Problems for truckers crossing the border with farm goods.
MEXICO-PROBLEMS WITH TRUCKERS GOING TO UNITED STATES.
– House Speaker Nancy Pelosi cast doubt Friday on the possibility that Congress would revive a program that allows Mexican truckers to operate in the U.S.
Congress killed the program last month, prompting Mexico to hike tariffs on about 90 U.S. imports including produce, red wine and consumer goods.
"I don’t see a change coming," Pelosi said Friday in a roundtable discussion with regional reporters. "The president may have some other views, and we’ll see what he has to say about it. But I don’t see any change."
The White House has tried to end the trade dispute by assigning Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood to design a program that meets North American Free Trade Agreement regulations but is palatable to lawmakers.
U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said Friday that the administration has assured Mexico it will try to resolve the dispute "sooner rather than later." But Kirk wasn’t sure there was a way to persuade Mexico to drop the tariffs, short of Congress lifting the restrictions.
The Teamsters union and the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association told LaHood this week that they remain opposed to Mexican trucks transporting goods on U.S. highways, citing concerns about safety and a lack of regulation in Mexico.
"They will continue to find hurdles because they are philosophically opposed to NAFTA and because they are opposed to competition from Mexican drivers with our own drivers," said Janet Kavinoky, director of transportation infrastructure for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who attended a meeting with LaHood this week.
The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association says Mexico should improve the data it keeps on accidents and citations for its truckers. It also says U.S. truckers won’t go south of the border now because of drug-related violence in Mexico .
"The idea this trade agreement is reciprocal in any way, shape or form is lunacy," said Todd Spencer, executive vice president of the independent drivers association, which represents U.S. professional truckers. " U.S. trucks aren’t safe south of the border, and Mexico can’t assure anything in that area."
Kirk, a former Dallas mayor, said that Mexico had the right to retaliate under NAFTA rules.
He said Congress ignored the "quiet objections" of his office and the White House when it killed the program.
Mexico levied the highest tariff on imported grapes, which mostly come from California , the home state of Pelosi and many other powerful Democrats in Congress. The duties target about $2.4 billion worth of U.S. exports.
"The reality is that we have to make sure that whatever restraints that we put on trade are rules-based, are science-based and, to the degree that we can, are not just driven by emotional or just purely political factors," Kirk said.
