First Mexican Truck already rolling into US under new program

Mexican trucks ready to roll
A pilot program to allow the haulers anywhere in the U.S. -- and vice versa -- is stoking new debates over NAFTA on both sides of the border

By Oscar Avila | Tribune foreign correspondent


MEXICO CITY - As soon as next week, the Olympic Transports trucking company of northern Mexico will make its first deliveries to Chicago, a 1,500-mile journey that has taken 13 years to become a reality.

The U.S. government gave Mexican trucks the green light, starting Friday, to transport goods into America's heartland for the first time in a quarter century. So far, Olympic has the only permit, but dozens of other Mexican companies are likely to follow.

The pilot program to allow cross-border trucking is one of the last bits of unfinished business from the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, which opened up markets for goods traveling among the U.S., Mexico and Canada.

Truckers News reported that the first Olympic Transports truck in the pilot program crossed the border without incident early Saturday, bound for North Carolina. U.S. officials inspected the truck for about two hours before letting it pass, according to the publication.

more:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-trucks_avilasep08,0,7518442.story

you hafta admire the courage of that driver. He's going to pass an awful lot of angry teamsters on the way to NC!

You can bet those trucks are gonna get inspected every step of the way. There's a joke in the trucking world. What's the difference between God and a Weigh Station officer?

God doesn't think he's a Weigh Station officer.

I'd bet that there are places where his cash won't be wanted. You know that every trucker, truck stop and weigh station is keeping track of the Mexican trucks.

...with a load of diesel fuel approaching $500 and a restaurant sitting half empty with a huge overhead, he will be most welcome in any truckstop...even if the manager later complains of "having" to serve him...

I'm just speculating here but with the communication system the truckers have that everyone up and down the road will know who and where these trucks are. If I was the owner of that truckstop I'd be more worried about pissing off the other 99% of my customers who also have those dual 100 gal tanks.

:eyes:

His name should be documented, besides in the inspection stations, as the pioneer into the underbelly of abuse he will be subjected to.

This isn't a nationalistic or racial thing for me.

But for the LEGITIMATE concerns, the 3rd item names Dems DeFAZIO, DiFi, & OBAMA as opposing the whole deal on Labor. safety. and environmental grounds.


*******QUOTE*******

http://mediamatters.org/items/200408060010

MMFA investigates: Who is Jerome Corsi, co-author of Swift Boat Vets attack book?

....
• Corsi on Islam: "a worthless, dangerous Satanic religion"

• Corsi on Catholicism: "Boy buggering in both Islam and Catholicism is okay with the Pope as long as it isn't reported by the liberal press"

• Corsi on Muslims: "RAGHEADS are Boy-Bumpers as clearly as they are Women-Haters -- it all goes together"

• Corsi on "John F*ing Commie Kerry": "After he married TerRAHsa, didn't John Kerry begin practicing Judiasm? He also has paternal grandparents that were Jewish. What religion is John Kerry?"

• Corsi on Senator "FAT HOG" Clinton: "Anybody ask why HELLary couldn't keep BJ Bill satisfied? Not lesbo or anything, is she?" ....


http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57539

PREMEDITATED MERGER

1st Mexican truck rolls across border under cover of darkness

Official: 'Logistical Trans-Corridor of North America' open for business
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted: September 8, 2007
5:05 p.m. Eastern

By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

The first Mexican truck authorized by a Bush administration program opening U.S. highways to trucking companies from south of the border crossed into the U.S. this morning at approximately 1:50 a.m. EDT at Laredo, Texas, headed for North Carolina, according to a report from Trucker.com.

WND research indicates Transportes Olympic, the Mexican trucking firm sending this morning's tractor trailer north, was actually selected to be the first across the border nearly six months ago, despite the administration's "last-minute" announcement of the carrier earlier this week – a revelation that has been described as an example of "stealth."

The designation of Transportes Olympic actually was made at a Feb. 22, 2007, ceremony held in Apodaca, a municipality of the city of Monterrey in the Mexican state Nuevo Leon, the headquarters location of Transportes Olympic.

The government ceremony in Mexico went virtually unreported in the U.S. media. ....




http://www.nasdaq.com/aspxcontent/NewsStory.aspx?cpath=20070907%5cACQRTT200709071213RTTRADERUSEQUITY_0732.htm&

Congressman Blasts Cross-Border Trucker Program

(RTTNews) - The Bush administration's plan to go ahead with a pilot program to allow up to 100 Mexican trucking firms to haul their cargo anywhere in the United States has drawn the ire of the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Highways and Transit.

"This opens the door to busting yet another union," Rep. Peter DeFazio told RTTNews in an interview Thursday. ....

Canadian trucking companies already have full access to U.S. roadways under NAFTA, which requires that truckers from the United States, Mexico and Canada have access to highways in all three signatory nations, but most Mexican trucks can travel only about 20 miles inside the country at certain border crossings, including those at San Diego, Calif. and El Paso, Texas. ....

One potential ally could be Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the influential California Democrat who has expressed concerns about the program, including its effects on air quality and highway safety. ....

Sen. Barack Obama, an Illinois Democrat and presidential contender, issued a statement Thursday expressing his opposition to the program.

"There simply remain too many safety and environmental concerns," he said.

********UNQUOTE*******

misses an opportunity to spit in the eye of working class Americans, where are the representatives for working class Americans?

you Americans are either too lazy or don't want to do...

http://www.iht.com/articles/1998/09/09/truck.t.php



If the truckers strike it would bring this country to a standstill. I thought this would be the thing that would mobilize them. I don't think this story has played out yet.

more outsourcing of the hired help.

headlines will read:
u.s. truckers file bankruptcy while non-u.s. truckers double their earnings

(okay--maybe that's a bit long for a headline)

Bush might get a truckstop named after him. 'The Shit and Run'.

but it hits a lot closer to home. This may be the final nail in the coffin of the working class romance with the GOP.

This is just the latest in an unending stream of abuses and, so far, they are still silent. :evilfrown:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/op-ed/navarrette/index.html

I've hit a fork in the road in my thinking concerning the unrelenting campaign by the Teamsters to deny Mexican trucks access to U.S. highways.

On the one hand, I recognize that these efforts are deplorable and destructive. They've tarnished the international reputation of the United States as a trading partner; highways in Mexico, Canada and the United States are supposed to be open to truckers from all three countries under the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The efforts have weakened the union by revealing how desperate it is to remain relevant amid declining membership. And, to the degree that the Teamsters have delayed the trucking provision of NAFTA from taking effect, the union has hurt both Mexican truckers, who have lost the chance to better themselves economically, and U.S. truckers, who have lost their competitive edge because they're protected from foreign workers (me: see? US truckers just aren't competitive enough because they demand outrageous things like $.42 a mile instead of $.15 a mile. Greedy, lazy Americans!!!).

Yet the union's campaign has also been quite helpful in pointing out what much of the opposition to globalization is really about – an attempt to artificially inflate wages for U.S. workers by keeping cheaper goods and services off the market and limiting competition. It's so ugly that it helped illuminate just how low some will sink to undermine trade deals by stoking nativist fears and stirring anti-Mexican sentiment. And it's so cynical that it helped make strange bedfellows: Union officials who worry about falling wages and foreign competition are suddenly aligned with conservatives who worry about vanishing borders and a merger of the three nations of North America.


More at the link if you can stomach it

Oh shit, I clicked and one article started off, " as a defender of Alberto Gonzales..." Oh man.

He did at least acknowledge that the employers share the blame, and not start bashing aliens reflexively.

They can also start outsourcing writers. These people think it can't happen to them. It'll only happen to blue collar schmucks. Yeah, at first. Then they come for you.

Probably the best drivers with the best records they can muster.

its the 2nd, 3rd and 500th batch that concerns me...when theres 2 many to monitor.

I'm not sure background checks will turn up bad drivers though. I'd also like to know if the Mexican trucks can take a load from one point in the US to another point in the US, or if they must only carry freight to and from Mexico.

However, the idea is to close down U.S. Pacific ports and divert all U.S.-bound shipping to Mexican ports, which are being expanded and improved.

I assume that the Atlantic ports will suffer the same fate.

The Teamsters have been known to use rought tactics, and that some members take matters into their own hands.

I wish that instead of targeting Mexican truckers, they'd take matters into their own hands with respect to the folks who hatched this abomination.

Some people here seem to be under the impression that the trucking industry is heavily unionized. It may have been 30 years ago, but now that is not the case. Most trucking companies are now non-union.

but it makes perfect sense. It's even worse than it sounds.

This is a strange case where the left and the right may agree on the outcome if not the reasons. Left is against because it hurts workers, weakens national sovereignty, increases possibility for terror or nefarious activities. Right is against for some of those same things, but mostly cause the 'brown horde'is swarming in.

I have read statements similar to "The U.S. government gave Mexican trucks the green light, starting Friday, to transport goods into America's heartland for the first time in a quarter century" in several stories about this.

Did Mexican trucks have access to American markets prior to the early 80's? What changed then?

Mexican trucks are only allowed to deliver cargo to U.S. locations, or can they pick up freight in the U.S. and deliver it to Mexico on their return trip?

If Mexican trucks have to drive back to Mexico empty that would be huge waste of fuel.