Mexico throws counterpunch in trucking dispute
By David Clark Scott | International news editor 03.20.09
Mexico’s greatest boxer, Julio César Chávez, would be proud.
Mexico threw a series of precise counterpunches at the US ban on 18-wheelers on Thursday.
Bang! It hit shipments of grapes from California with a 45 percent tariff.
Pow! Pow! Pow! Fresh pears, Christmas trees, and frozen French fries from Oregon were all smacked with a 20 percent tax.
Bam! Sunflower seeds from North Dakota were tagged with a 15 percent duty.
Mexico is the third-largest US trading partner, after China and Canada. The tariffs that went into effect Thursday will hit some $2.4 billion goods across 40 states. That’s likely to mean lost American jobs during one of the worst recessions in recent memory.
The response was not unexpected. You can read it about it here: “Mexico’s punitive tariffs raise stakes on US trucking dispute”
But what’s noteworthy is not the breadth of Mexico’s retaliation. It’s the political accuracy of their tariff targeting.
FRUITS AND NUTS
The shot at California fruit and nut producers is designed to get the attention of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Pears, trees, and potatoes?
That’s designed to focus the attention of Oregon’s Congressman Peter DeFazio, who called Mexican trucks unsafe. Representative DeFazio, it turns out, is a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
Mexico is the largest export market for pears, and the weak peso had already led to a drop in demand there, Jeff Correa, international marketing director for the Pear Bureau Northwest in Oregon told Bloomberg News. A 20 percent tax on top of that could “push us entirely out of the market,” Correa said.
That combination alone could cost Oregon more than $80 million and about 1,000 jobs, according to the Oregonian. All told, an estimated 40,000 US jobs could be at risk.
WHAT’S UP WITH SUNFLOWER SEEDS?
What does Mexico have against North Dakota sunflower seeds?
Probably nothing. But Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan hails from the Canadian border state. And he has no love for NAFTA or Mexican long-haul trucks. He sponsored the amendment last week that closed the US-Mexico border on the grounds that Mexican trucks were unsafe.
It’s not exactly a new issue for him. When he endorsed Barack Obama for president more than a year ago, he said, “Senator Obama has never felt … that NAFTA was good for America… He and I feel the same way.”
He also published the book “Take This Job and Ship It: How Corporate Greed and Brain-Dead Politics Are Selling Out America.”
President Obama has pledged to work with Congress to find a solution to the trucking impasse. We’ll soon see if Mexico’s pinpoint tariffs have helped focus the attention of members of Congress or not.
<< Meet the economic radical | MainComments
2. Louis | 03.20.09
We should respond by relocating the millions of freeloading mexican immigrants back to Mexico where they can suck up Mexican resources. Also, we should add punitive tariffs to everything they export here until they remove their punitive tariffs. I prefer free trade, but if Mexico does not want that, so be it.
3. John Weber | 03.20.09
We will have to push back harder on them. You don’t pull on Superman’s cape!
4. Realista | 03.20.09
POW… POW… POW…
1. $5,000.00 FINE On EACH ILLEGAL MEXICAN Allowed by Mexico… To CROSS BORDER inyo United States.
2. DEMAND Full Re-Payment of ALL COSTS of ILLEGAL MEXICANS… Welfare, Medicaid, Cost of Jailing, Cost of Deporting back to Mexico.
3. These COSTS Will Be Deducted From U.S. Oil Purchases from Mexico and a 20 percent TAX on Remittances.
5. RC | 03.20.09
Mexico is our 3rd largest trading partner. Why do we insist on treating Mexico as the worst step child of trading partners.
How about setting a set of safety standards for trucks, and allowing those trucks that meet such standards to operate over our roads. Why the blanket “No Mexican Trucks”?
6. nb | 03.20.09
Of course many of the lost jobs may well be those of Mexicans legally or illegally residing in the US. They may return home…
8. KF | 03.20.09
This controversy over trucks and tariffs doesn’t have any legs. The real issue is that Mexico’s tourism industry revenue has been destroyed by the drug cartels’ warring. On our side, the warring has created personal safety and crime issues that have damaged life for residents of border towns in Texas and Arizona. We should insist that Mexican trucks operated here meet US DOT standards; we should also prosecute American gun smugglers who are supporting the drug traffickers.
9. Ruth DeFendis Williams | 03.20.09
I am concerned about Central Valley air along Highway 99 through the center of California. Air emmision rules on California trucks make us safer. Why do millions of people have to have copd and air way disorders- and die- for the good of a trade agreement?
How is it for the higher good to decimate clean air standards? How is it for the higher good to do this?
How are those already in hazardous air basins sacrificing for agriculture world wide- being asked to pay this price? Excuse me? How is this for whose higher good? Why aren’t the people already struggling to breath and their children being figured in?
How ought I to trust Mexico with its clean air standards to bring safe Mexican trucks into this air basin- and treat me and my right to breath exactly as they treat their own citizens in Mexico, for instance, near Mexico City.
10. Don Owens | 03.20.09
This fight has been an issue since 1992. Mexico likes to pretend we’re picking on them but there are two major issues at play here. #1 When Democrats and Republicans passed NAFTA in 1992 no one thought about trying to coordinate health and safety rules, such as those for long-haul truckers, between the three countries. And #2, the U.S. doesn’t impose these restrictions on Canada because, Canada has taken the time to implement a health and safety system of background checks on it’s trucks and it’s drivers. Mexico has been ‘promising’ to do this for almost two decades. Think about it, if a Mexican-based long haul trucker was stopped in Rhode Island for speeding, or being overweight, or having faulty lights and a ticket was given by a state trooper, how would the trooper check the drivers license and plates? As far as I know, Mexico still has not nationalized computer database which tracks its drivers or trucks, it’s mostly local. That’s not true in Canada. This issue will be resolved when Mexican drivers are paid more IN MEXICO, have to abide by Hours of Service rules as they do in the U.S. and Canada, and when Mexico makes this a priority to improve health and safety. Mexico cannot just demand access to America’s market without raising it’s health and safety standards.
11. VS | 03.20.09
Fools, fools, fools!!! Mexicans don’t cost us money, they MAKE us money. Every time you eat fruits/veggies you can thank them for the money you keep in your pocket.
12. Disgusted Expat | 03.20.09
A note to the simple minded: Although some illegal immigrants may avail themselves of state-provided resources, the amount of taxes they pay through withholding and retail purchases far exceeds any drain they impose on the system. And they wouldn’t come in the first place if the jobs weren’t there. How many US citizens have been standing in line to get hired for seasonal fieldwork? On top of that, the American businesses that hire illegals depend on a workforce willing to do the menial, backbreaking and dangerous labor for bargain rates. Now that the economy is cratering, they’re heading back to Mexico in droves. They’re not idiots, unlike a surprising number of knee-jerk US xenophobes.
13. cragg | 03.20.09
It is time to redo the free trade agreement and make it fair for all especially with Canada and the agreement on oil today the agreement says Canada has to offer 60% of its oil to the US if there is a new free trade agreement that would be taken out or reduced to 2%, we supply the US with 44% of its oil and you do not have to fight for it.
14. HiloBob | 03.20.09
There is a down side to this story for Mexico. As the recession hits the U.S. harder, fewer Mexican workers will be sending remittances home, fewer U.S. vacation dollars will be spent (on top of the drug war thing), and less oil will be purchased.
If Mexican trucks and drivers can meet U.S. standards, why can’t they operate here?
It’s a lose, lose.
15. james | 03.20.09
gee whiz, its a contract and if you where a company or a individual you would get sued for breach of contract if you did not honor the contract. live with it, and fullfil the contractual obligations that your Congress and President signed.
16. Clay Richardson | 03.21.09
I don’t think that the Mexican government has thought this through completely. Who is going to be the first to lose jobs here in the U.S. as demand for products drop? The migrant workers. Both legal and illegal. So not only will it hurt their economy by leaving a void that will have to be filled for the Mexican consumer, but Mexicans in transportation of the products will lose jobs. It will also undoubtedly raise the cost of products in Mexico. So many hurt people, so many hurt Mexicans.
17. cr | 03.21.09
One of the difficulties with the Mexican truck drivers is that many of them don’t speak English. If you are operating an 80,000 pound vehicle hurtling down the road at 70 miles an hour, is it too much to ask that english is spoken? A set standard for trucks and truck drivers would be the easiest solution. Though Mexico hasn’t offered that as a suggestion.
18. Niko | 03.21.09
What about the program which tracked Mex trucks entering the U.S since 2007? The U.S. Dept. of Transportation determined they were safer than their U.S. counterparts. It’s called protectionism pushed by influential unions like Teamsters. That only hurts both countries’ economies in the long run.
19. trudy | 03.21.09
Yes, they’ve targeted Mexican jobs in the U.S. Who do they think picks that produce they’re targeting? So in the long run, this is beneficial to the U.S.’s being self-sufficient.
20. sully | 03.21.09
The answer I believe should look something like.Mexican trucking companies having divisions that are located on this side of the border with trucks that stay on this side of the border following American safety and labor standards making them American trucking companies and allowing American trucking companies
to do the same.I’m no big advocate of NAFTA but America needs a Mexico in the first world that leaves this 3rd world mentality of theirs in the history books.
21. Nun. A. Tak | 03.21.09
When Canada opened up it’s border to free trade, it was American trucks that were deemed sub-par and it seemed like almost every other week a tire would fly off and kill some unsuspecting Canadian driver and/or their family. It took about a year to harmonize standards but trade continued.
The US is a nation of laws and to me it would make more sense — as the poster RC stated above — to honor our obligations under NAFTA and set clear international standards and enforcement mechanisms. It would appear that the pendulum is swinging back in favor of regulation. To me, regulation seems infinitely preferable to breaking contracts and starting trade wars.
22. TrueRealista | 03.21.09
In most markets in the US, it is Mexican illegals that build the houses, cut the grass, clean the tables, clean the houses, among other things. On average the labor cost is much less and the output is higher in terms of hours/week. This means that our houses, yards, and food cost us much less than they would otherwise. Those are dollars in our pocket as a nation. No one ever considers this when spewing out the healthcare costs. How much more would the very house you and most Senators live in have cost if illegal Mexicans had not built it? 20K, 100K, 400K? Think about it. How many illegals are there, 15 million? How many work hours do they represent per week (15 million times 60 hours/week? How much are they saving their employer per hour ($1,$2 or $5 per hour)? Multiply it by a year. Think about it. Don’t just think what you are told to think. If there were truly no benefit from illegals, there wouldn’t be any. Think about it.
23. Tactical Grace | 03.21.09
Have them meet the requirements and pass the tests for an American CDL and be insured by American insurers. Speaking and reading English should also be a requirement so they can observe and follow the rules of our roads. That they meet the same standards as American truckers doesn’t seem to be asking too much.
24. rgb | 03.21.09
If Mexico wants to brings us to our knees, all they have to do is limit oil exports to the us for a week or so. The resulting howl of inconvenienced north American drivers will drown all the other arguments out.
25. I am Arkad | 03.21.09
Pow Pow Pow:
How about return income taxes and social security taxes paid to illegal immigrants? No, wait that would bankrupt the Social Security System.
26. Benson | 03.22.09
We should never ever gotten involved with NAPTHA> the state deptartment got this pass with deceipt and we have lost thousands of jobs. I would shut down the border completely,add ioo% tarrif on all incoming goods, stop all moneys going to them including arms, and start returning all non Mexican citizens quickly in large numbers. All this to begin now. Now lets see how Pow…Pow…Pow effect their country
27. American | 03.22.09
The libs have got their self a real mess now. heir illegal immigrant stance won’t allow them to TOUCH any immigrant issue. The loss of more jobs DIRECTLY related to their ignoramus ideas and arrogance is killing America.
WAKE UP AMERICA!!!! LIBERALISM IS A PLAGUE not a panacea.
28. Ray Schumacher | 03.22.09
“How about setting a set of safety standards for trucks, and allowing those trucks that meet such standards to operate over our roads. Why the blanket “No Mexican Trucks”?”
DOT standards do exist, but they are not enforceable for Mexican truckers under the terms of NAFTA. Mexican trucks only need to meet Mexican “standards” - which means have a Mexican tag, which can be bought/bribed for less than the cost of repairs and maintenance.
If DOT rules were enforced, a lot of Mexican trucks would not be allowed, which is all that should be done; the US is already breaking the terms of NAFTA as it is, so why not?
29. alarryone | 03.22.09
Every time you see a Mexican or Canadian truck in this country it means one less U.S. job. The original deregulation that allowed Canadian trucks in this country caused thousands of job losses and now do you think it should be repeated?
30. JLS | 03.22.09
I was thinking the same thing as “nb”… the jobs that will be lost are most likely those of the workers who are probably mostly “undocumented” workers that are here illegally from Mexico. That will cut into all of those American dollars that they have been wiring back to Mexcio. Might be a case of Mexico cutting off its nose to spite its own face.
31. Tariq J Qureshi (TQ) | 03.22.09
Simple answer was to define the truck specifications for plying on US Roads. The high-handedness syptoms from Bush years have intoxicated administrative officials, who are not relaizing how it will hurt USA.
I was in Mexico over the weekend, and realize that our next door neighbors are not in a bad shape. Their poor know how to live within means. Resentment against US is building up.
1. Mexican illegals can be send back and they also have enough land in Mexico to cultivate, but question is would US citizens like to ‘take-over’ all so called ‘menial” jobs the Mexicans are doing in the farms?
2. History tells us that first the farm labor was the blacks bought from Africa, railroad workers were bought from China, and IT workers were bought from India, where did it end up?
If we really want to shut down our industry, we can very well enforce the rules and built a wall all accross the border, BUT, count the ways we will hurt ourselves, before counting the ways how we can hurt others?
32. Stephen | 03.22.09
Who cares about a stone age country that is behind the times anyway. Deport all illegals. Then errect a solid brink/barb wire fence to keep the undesirables in their place, namely Mexico. The illegals that have kids here that supposed americans. Do not allow them to attend public schools and legislate apartment offices and banks to charge higher rates. Finally, have the banks and all financial institutions stop providing the service of wiretransferring of US dollars to that country and watch that country go down the tubes.
33. rman | 03.22.09
Mexico and the US are both being silly. We should be encouraging stronger relationships with our neighbors in the Americas so that all our economies
can prosper. The alternative is to trade with Asia which does contributes little to bettering our hemisphere. The unions and politicians in the US
are short sighted. They are busy complaining about NAFTA when the real
threat is from Asia. Could it be that the Asian lobby pays better than
the NAFAT guys.
Remember Mexico is not the one holding a large reserve of our currency
and they are not threatening our allies in Asia with nuclear weapons.
34. Devon Jones | 03.22.09
LOL! don´t americans realize that the world has changed in the last 20 years? Mexico is a trillion dollar economy and NOT dependent on the US, their banks and economy are actually in better shape than ours and that is a fact. China is gaining on us fast and seems to be very happy that we don´t want to open our eyes to the fact that we are no longer the “superman” of this planet. Everybody is working, while we sit and talk ourselves into believing that “we are the best”, “everybody needs us”, “we can slap them anytime we want”. WAKE UP!!!! little dirt poor Mexico as we like to believe, buys about 200 billion worth of goods from us. They are one of the few nations that still prefer american trucks and cars, our wine, our clothing, our food, and our tools and equipment. Since 2004, about 400 americans have died in Mexico. What you don´t know is that about half of those deaths are drug related deaths of Mexicans with US citizenship that are involved in the drug trade. The 200 left, happened while 15 million others went there and came back safely and secure. I don´t know about you, but those look like pretty good numbers to me.
I also want to remind everybody of this rarely talked about fact. In the coming 30 years, the US will experience a dramatic shift of the age of its citizens. Millions will retire and require social security, and theres simply not enough young americans to cover that. We will need to import millions of people, and you wont find them in europe, or russia, or australia. You can get them from africa, or the middle east, or latin america. Guess which one i prefer? and i bet that even do you dont want to admit it, you do too.
35. steve rimmer | 03.22.09
maybe we should put a high tariff on the freightliner trucks that are being built in Mexico and transported back into the U S since they are in the process of closing the plants in the U S that were building these trucks for them or trucking companies here in the U.S. stand up to companies like freightliner and tell them they want their trucks built in the U.S. or they will buy another brand. this also has put over 5000 U.S workers out of jobs if a company like Coca-Cola can demand that their trucks be U.S built and keep freightliner from totally closing one of their U.S plants surely these other major trucking companies can do the same not to mention that American tax dollars are being spent on these trucks coming from Mexico for government contracts such gsa ( general services administration) now how would Mexico feel about that since freightliner just built a 3 million dollar plant there and they weren’t allowed to send them back into the U.S as well as Canada.
36. Unrealista | 03.22.09
How about returning all the tax withholding we keep from illegal immigrants they who work here under false SSN’s? They still pay, but they never get to see a dime of this return to them in Social Security.
Oh. Sorry. Guess you didn’t know about that.
37. Miggell | 03.23.09
Mexican truck driver do not have to learn english to follow road rules. Most states published Driver licens booklets of rulles to apply for the Commercial driver License in E S P A Ñ O L . Also a large number of the trucks that you see lining the international Bridges in the US-Mexico border are brand new Peterbilts, Kenworths, International, you name it, which ironically are built in Mexico out of American parts.
38. Bonnie | 03.23.09
You do realize that American trucks are not allowed to enter Mexico, right? Go down to any Texas border town and you can see the American trucks lined up, waiting to pick up or drop off their trailers at the border because they are not allowed to cross the border like they do the Canadian one.
39. Virginia | 03.23.09
Really, what is so bad about the Mexican trucks?? You should see the ones that drive back and forth from the port of Oakland every day. You should see the damage to the highways and the pollution from these diesel dinosaurs.
This issue obviously has little to do with the actual trucks and is a political manouver by both countries.
40. Herman King | 03.23.09
Tariffs can be useful. They paid for the operation of our federal governmment before the income tax was instituted.
41. Jay | 03.24.09
As the Mexicans go so goes the great USA ponzi scheme social security and medicare. One thing different about the Mexican truck drivers is that they can fix their own trucks,unlike the Union boys who have to sit on the side of the road waiting for some one else. Mexicans also take more pride in their trucks.
42. Red Rabid | 03.24.09
Creating more regulation in Mexico, the land of the bribe, will surely work. What we also need to do is crush the economy here so that it will be less enticing to those from other countries. We can layer on masses of regulation here written in english which would take more than a lifetime to read. This is our true recipe for success.
44. jpAcosta | 03.24.09
Devon Jones: You are totally right!!!! Americans need to wake up. Well, only those who haven’t already. Very good points!
45. johnny | 03.26.09
Oboma is a light weight on foreign policy,apparently he has no understanding on basic trade issues !!HIS stimulus package was full of PROTECTIONSM and he CAVED into EUROPE and back tracked and he will do so with MEXICO.OBOMA is either naive & ignorant,or the UNIONS write the bills and he just RUBBER STAMPS it and definitely either CAN’T or won’t READ IT.IT’S ALITTLE EMBARASING how other countries pressure him and he changes his mind and retreats on his ideas & his own COUNTRYMEN CAN’T.[ change you can’t believe in]It will be both an interesting and dreadful for years….wait for CHINA and the RUSSIA to strong arm him….THEN WE WILL REALY BE SCREWED !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
46. rman | 05.10.09
Don’t worry folks. If the trucks don’t get built in Mexico, they will be built in China. Either way - they will not be built in America.
Your choice is whether you want to send your money to fund a government
that is crushing democratic values and is building an army to threaten your interests.
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1. KC | 03.20.09
Mexico’s strategy of attacking the representatives of those areas seems sound. It should put attention on the original trucking issue. Smart move Mexico!