Mexican Truckers Ready to Hit the Open Road

0 Comments | Insight on the News, August 13, 2001 | by Hugh Aynesworth

Proposed regulations would allow Mexican drivers to carry cargo throughout the United States. U.S. trucking companies and drivers fear safety hazards and loss of jobs.

They come by the hundreds, lumbering along like big, fire-breathing monsters -- an almost nonstop parade of huge semis, easing across the International Bridge in Laredo, Texas. There might be dozens queued up at one time as federal, state and local investigators saunter forward to examine them or let them continue on their journeys. These drivers are Mexican nationals, manning rigs owned by Mexican trucking companies, delivering freight to the United States. At present they are required to enter and unload their cargoes within 20 miles of the U.S.-Mexican border. U.S. trucking firms then reload and deliver the cargo the rest of the way, to places such as Milwaukee, St. Louis, Seattle and New York City.

But the scenario could change later this year. At least that's what the Bush administration has in mind. Proposed regulations from the Department of Transportation (DOT) and its Federal Motor Safety Carrier Administration have caused a furor as longtime critics claim the new rules aren't tough enough to ensure safety and eventually would cause havoc on our highways.

"We're going to fight this thing the whole way," says Bret Caldwell, spokesman for the 1.5-million-member International Brotherhood of Teamsters in Washington, perhaps the strongest group opposed to the opening of U.S. highways to Mexican truckers by the end of the year.

Others predict the new proposals will ignite such opposition that Congress might get involved. This summer, 10 Democratic senators sent a letter to President George W. Bush asking him to reconsider his plan. Granting access to unsafe Mexican trucks "could seriously jeopardize highway safety, road conditions and environmental quality," the letter stated. But the House Appropriations Committee has reaffirmed the administration's proposals on Mexican trucks, voting along party lines to reject an amendment by a Democratic member to toughen the proposed safety standards.

In Laredo, a city of about 172,000 that saw almost one-third of the 4.5 million Mexico-to-U.S. truck crossings last year, things seem pretty much as usual. A handful of inspectors work long hours, trying to weed out trucks considered hazardous. They don't have the manpower to get to most of those that chug by. "This whole thing is a bad joke on the American people," says Jorge Cantu, a retired U.S. Customs Service agent who lives in Pharr, near the border. "Everyone was worried about drugs, and Washington never gave us adequate funding to beat that element. Still don't have it in hand. Now the main concern seems to be the truck drivers. Does anybody really believe cracking down on truck operators is as important as stopping the avalanche of illegal drugs?"

When the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was adopted in 1994, part of that agreement specified that transportation between Mexico, the United States and Canada would be wide open. Drivers and rigs from companies from any of those nations would have free access to the highways and byways of the other two.

According to NAFTA, at first the Mexican drivers were to have access only in the four border states, but by 1999 they were to have complete roaming permission to drive anywhere. It didn't happen. Critics complained that Mexican operatives, often barreling along with less-than-safe equipment and with untrained and overworked drivers, would endanger Americans and themselves. It was widely pointed out that the trucking industry in Mexico, save for a few notable exceptions, had never successfully been monitored, much less supervised.

The Clinton administration for five years only allowed the Mexican truckers access to commercial unloading zones that ranged 5 to 20 miles from the border. Mexico complained, but not all that loudly -- in part, some say, because the U.S. government was lending it billions to bail out its failing economy. The country finally filed an official complaint under NAFTA. In February, an international trade-mediation group ruled that the United States had, indeed, breached its treaty responsibilities and was ordered to quickly comply.

President Bush, who as governor of Texas complained bitterly about the Clinton administration's failure to allow the Mexican firms access, wants NAFTA to become the international-trade entity it was designed to be. His fiscal 2002 budget allocates -- and the House Appropriations Committee recently approved -- $88 million for the construction of additional inspection facilities at the border.

As in many complicated situations involving politics, money and environmental concerns, there apparently is no easy answer to this festering problem. Federal, state and local authorities in U.S. border states are strained by the current border truck traffic, and many blanch at the suggestion that number could double or even quadruple in coming months.

"We can't examine one out of 10 properly now," says a Texas Department of Public Safety officer who asked not to be identified. "We just don't have enough people. God knows what will happen when the floodgates open."