Landmark US-Mexico trucking agreement resolves 15-year conflict

[WestVirginiaRebel]

CS Monitor:

Washington
The United States and Mexico on Wednesday signed an agreement aimed at resolving a cross-border trucking dispute. The longstanding disagreement had come to symbolize growing resistance, especially in the US Congress, to free-trade provisions with America’s southern neighbor.

The accord, signed in Mexico City by US and Mexican transportation officials, would end a 15-year-old controversy that on the US side featured fears of unsafe Mexican trucks barreling along US highways, driven by unprofessional Mexican truckers.

On the Mexican side, outrage over the American disregard for a NAFTA provision led to retaliatory tariffs on US goods ranging from pork to consumer care products – which cost the US as much as $2 billion in exports.

The accord was greeted warmly by US trade, farm, and business organizations – but condemned by US trucking organizations, a sign the agreement could face trouble in Congress.

IN PHOTOS: US-Mexico State Dinner

Under the agreement, the US will reinstate a pilot program for Mexican truck certification that was introduced under the Bush administration – and defunded by an angry Congress in 2009. Mexico, in turn, will immediately drop half of the tariffs on about 100 US products, with the rest to be removed when Mexican trucks actually start rolling across the border.

“The agreements signed today are a win for roadway safety and they are a win for trade,” said US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood after signing the documents.
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I can imagine what-or who-some of the cargo on those Mexican trucks might be...

[Pepper]

Article:

 

The accord, signed in Mexico City by US and Mexican transportation officials, would end a 15-year-old controversy that on the US side featured fears of unsafe Mexican trucks barreling along US highways, driven by unprofessional Mexican truckers.

 

WestVirginiaRebel

 

Aha, I see, this would fix the current problem of thousands of unsafe Mexican trucks depositing the huddled masses along our border states, then those huddled masses yearning to be free having to cross on foot, in order to have to resume a journey by other criminal truck drivers here embedding them further into the US.

 

Makes sense. Now we will have the unsafe Mexican trucks barreling along US highways, driven by unprofessional Mexican truckers loaded with illegals. Gracias, Presidente Bush y Presidente Obama

 

Good luck trying to recoup costs in a traffic accident with a Mexican trucking company.