Closing the U.S. border to Mexican trucks is about jobs

Opponents of free and open long-haul trucking between Mexico and the United States have been focusing most of the public’s attention on their contention that thousands of Mexican trucks eventually tens of thousands crisscrossing the country would present a danger to American motorists.

There may be some truth to that, although available statistics on the very limited amount of travel by Mexican trucks that has been going on in the United States does not support that contention.

And they like to point out that opening the border to thousands of cargoes that would originate in Mexico and could then drive straight through to Portland, Oregon, or Portland, Maine, provides far too many opportunities for smuggling, especially at a time when the United States is trying to tighten its border.

That would certainly be true.

It’s about jobs

But to be honest, the biggest factor in the minds of many of the opponents is the potential that cross-border trucking presents for Mexican truckers to take the jobs of American truckers.

And we don’t see anything wrong with American working men and women and independent businessmen who own and run their own rigs trying to protect their jobs.

For too long, the United States has led the way toward a free-trade world that was supposed to result in more jobs, more U.S. exports and greater prosperity for all. And for too long, fewer American durable goods were being produced in the United States, more goods were being imported — by the hundreds of billions of dollars — and more U.S. manufacturing jobs were lost.

Open-border trucking presents a threat to service jobs. Eventually there will be fewer American truckers and fewer U.S.-based trucks, which will mean fewer mechanics, tire men and truck washers earning their living north of the border.

A U.S. pilot program would give as many as 25 Mexican firms permission to haul cargo north of the border by the end of the month, and will add another 25 per month until reaching 100 carriers running 1,000 trucks by year's end under a one-year pilot program. The Mexican government also has committed to allow trucks from as many as 100 U.S. firms to travel anywhere in Mexico.

The Bush administration successfully fought an effort by the Teamsters union to block implementation of the program. But after the court ruled in the administration’s favor, Congress stepped in and blocked implementation by denying funding for the enforcement that would be needed to put the pilot plan into effect.

But the real opposition isn’t to the pilot program, because 2,000 trucks going back and forth across the border isn’t going to have much of an effect on the U.S. trucking industry. (Just as inspecting and monitoring 1,000 hand-picked Mexican trucks and drivers isn’t going to give anyone a very good idea of how safe or unsafe trucking without borders could eventually become.)

Looking down the road

What U.S. truckers are worried about is what comes after the pilot program. Five years, 10 years and 20 years down the road, who is likely to get trucking contracts? Companies paying drivers Mexican wages or companies paying drivers U.S. wages? Do the math.

It is the same math that explains why the trucking industry did not object strenuously when barriers were dropped between the U.S. and Canada. The standard of living for drivers in both countries was comparable, and therefore neither represented much of a threat to the other.

What Congress is doing may not be in the spirit of the North American Free Trade Agreement, but it is in the spirit of protecting a valuable segment of the U.S. service economy. Neither the House nor the Senate has any apologies to make for their votes.