Editorial: Thumbs Up to Nafta Trucking

President Bush’s swift agreement to open the U.S.-Mexico border to international truck traffic shows his commitment to trade between North America’s most populous neighbors and to promises made along the campaign trail.

The president moved swiftly after a review panel formally declared that the U.S. violated the North American Free Trade Agreement by refusing to certify Mexican trucks to move freight into the United States.

Some 200 Mexican carriers have applied for such rights, which were supposed to be available under Nafta since December 1995. But that was when President Clinton, under pressure from the Teamsters union and others, refused to take the first step.

We understand the safety concerns raised over Mexican trucks and drivers, and agree that both must be held to U.S. standards, as provided under the trade pact.

table width=116 align=right border=0>We don’t agree, however, that there are grounds for major concern about the Mexican trucking operations that will qualify for U.S. authority. To win operating authority, they will have to be safe. As discussed in several stories in this issue of Transport Topics, many of the safety failings in the past have been in Mexico’s version of the drayage industry, in which short-haul trucks move trailers between customs lots and warehouses on both sides of the border. Many of these trucks are old and not kept up to snuff.

In recent years, the quality of Mexican trucks working in the commercial zones that line the U.S. side of the border in urban and industrial regions has improved, as shown by their falling out-of-service rates, now in the range of their U.S. counterparts. Moreover, many of the Mexican carriers that want to haul to U.S. destinations have already outfitted themselves with the latest American tractors. They also tend to have Mexico’s highest-paid, most-qualified drivers.

Of course, we agree that more inspectors are needed to ensure that our safety standards are met. Now that we have a presidential administration that thinks opening the border to Nafta trucking is a priority, we can expect the regulatory agencies to quickly fill the voids.

We don’t expect a flood of new trucking activity from the south in the short term; rather, it appears that the primary benefit will be a more efficient system of freight movements on both sides of the border under established interline practices.

More than $160 billion in freight moved between the two nations by truck in the first 11 months of 2000, according to U.S. government statistics, which shows just how important each nation has become to the other as a trading partner.

Thanks to President Bush, this relationship will only grow.