Mexico To Raise Tariffs on US Exports to Mexico

                               Mexico To Raise Tariffs on US Exports

Mexico has announced plans to raise tariffs on almost 90 U.S. exports, Mexican and U.S. officials confirmed Monday.

The new trade measures are in retaliation for the cancellation earlier this year of a U.S. commercial trucking project and will target U.S. industrial and agricultural products delivered to Mexico, Mexico's state-run news agency said.

Mexico's Economic Secretary Gerardo Ruiz Mateos called the cancellation of the program a breach of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the agency said.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the trucking project was killed in the 2009 omnibus appropriations bill, but President Barack Obama has asked his administration to create a new program.

"Congress has opposed the project in the past because of concerns about the process that led to the program's establishment and its operation," Gibbs said.

The project allowed a small number of Mexican trucks to enter the United States beyond the normal commercial zones, and allowed some U.S. trucks the same privilege in Mexico.

Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, warned that the Mexican action would harm American businesses.

Unfortunately, this is a predictable reaction by the Mexican government to a policy that now puts the United States in clear violation of the North American Free Trade Agreement and was inappropriately inserted into the omnibus appropriations bill," McCain said after learning of the Mexican government's plans.

McCain said Washington "must take steps to prevent escalation of further protectionist measures -- actions that only serve to harm American business during these tough economic times when these businesses need a worldwide marketplace to prosper."

 "This is another reason why the president should have vetoed the omnibus spending bill," McCain added."

NAFTA Superhighway to Mean Mexican Drivers, Say Teamsters Union- Warns of Drug-taking Truckers, Unsafe Rigs on Planned Trade Routes

The NAFTA superhighway, a north-south interstate trade corridor linking Mexico, Canada and the U.S., would mean U.S. truckers replaced by Mexicans, more unsafe rigs on American roads and more drivers relying on drugs for their long hauls, charges the International Brotherhood of Teamsters – the latest group to weigh in against the Bush administration plan.

The August issue of Teamster magazine features a cover story on the plan for an enlarged I-35 that will reach north from the drug capital border town of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, 1,600 miles to Canada through San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, Kansas City, Minneapolis and Duluth, while I-69 originating at the same crossing will shoot north to Michigan and across the Canadian border.

Public proposals for the superhighway calls for each corridor to be 1,200 feet wide with six lanes devoted to cars, four to trucks, with a rail line and utilities in the middle. Most of the goods will come from new Mexican ports being built on the Pacific Coast – ports being run by Chinese state-controlled shipping companies.

"Tens of thousands of unregulated, unsafe Mexican trucks will flow unchecked through out border – a very real threat to the safety of our highways, homeland security and good-paying American jobs," writes Teamster President Jim Hoffa. "The Bush administration hasn't given up on its ridiculous quest to open our border to unsafe Mexican trucking companies. In fact, Bush is quietly moving forward with plans to build the massive network of highways from the Mexican border north through Detroit into Canada that would make cross-border trucking effortless."

So incensed was the union over the plan for the NAFTA superhighway that it sent investigative reporter Charles Bowden to Mexico for its August magazine report on the problems affecting Mexican drivers – problems that could soon come home to Americans with the plans for the new intercontinental highways.

Drivers interviewed for the magazine report say they are exploited by companies that force them to drive 4,500 kilometers alone over the course of five or six nights without sleep. How do they stay awake on such long hauls?

One driver says, "professional secret." Another laughs, "magic dust." Others mention "special chemicals." ..more...