Editorial, 09/13/2007 - Trucking ban just latest insult to good neighbor

Chances are, President Bush will veto Congress’ latest act of jingoism — forcing both houses into a down-the-road debate over Mexican trucks traveling into this country.

That’s good. Recent votes to keep that neighbor nation’s trucks out, while welcoming those from Canada, have been based on the same kind of anti-Mexican emotion that threw immigration reform into the gutter just three months ago.

But it’s also bad. Count on fear of furriners — that is, the kind who speak a different language and come from southern, not northern, European stock, to prompt a propaganda campaign playing into the hands of the Teamsters Union, whose leaders like the obstruction against Mexico just fine.

Today, most camiones from the south — the very same kind of 18-wheelers plying our highways — have to unload their cargoes no farther than 25 miles into the United States. After that unnecessary transshipment, their country’s produce and other goods are driven to Dallas, Dubuque and Duluth by U.S. drivers.

This restriction only appeared in the early 1980s. And it might have been fine in terms of giving our guys and gals employment — but it’s shortsighted when you consider that John and Joan could be trucking U.S. merchandise from Tijuana to Tapachula. Instead, it’ll be tit for tat, which business and labor interests south of the border will be happy to play.

Overcoming such pettiness was one of the ideas behind the North American Free Trade Agreement, reached between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico back in 1994. It’s a treaty to which we’re bound, and it includes phasing in more continent-long hauling.

But not 13 years of phasing in; this was supposed to have been the deal by the turn of the century. Safety concerns have been a leading excuse for the delay. So if the issue continues to arise, in Congress and the courts, count on commercials featuring crash-and-burn scenes out of the video-game world, with narrative to the effect that this would be common if we let those people drive here.

But how confortable do you feel with our people playing high-speed caroms with monstrous trucks on our highways?

Texas Sen. John Cornyn sought to amend the trade-stifling measure approved Tuesday, to reinforce the longstanding demand that Mexican drivers speak English; that their trucks undergo the same safety inspections ours do, and verify their inspections every time they come into the United States.

But his South Dakota colleague, Byron Dorgan, gleefully reminded fellow Senators of last week’s dynamite-truck collision in northern Mexico. Never mind that Mexico isn’t exporting dynamite; it’s the image that counts. Dorgan’s proposal to pull funding from the carefully planned program putting more trucks in U.S.-Mexican commerce carried, 74-24.

So another treaty turns out not to be worth the paper on which it’s written? The trucking portion of NAFTA isn’t, say our pandering politicians. For that, norteamericano consumers and businesses will pay more for Mexican goods, Mexicans most likely will also fork over more pesos than they should, and opportunities for over-the-border business — and jobs — will be lost.

Also lost, at least for now, is a bit more of our nation’s once-famous sense of fair play.

Safety must be part of any trucking agreement Congress reaches — for the sake of people on both sides of the border. Cornyn’s concerns deserve calm debate.