U.S. federal and state authorities do not have the authority under NAFTA to require Mexico-domiciled trucks to meet U.S. safety standards. So our government has decided to use U.S. Highway Trust Funds (which come from the federal gasoline taxes that YOU pay) to foot the bill for onboard electronic monitoring recorders in Mexican trucks. That means that you are paying for Mexican trucks’ compliance with a U.S. safety standard. Do you want to pay more for your gasoline so that foreign truckers can cross our borders and come work here in the U.S.? U.S. truckers and trucking companies must pay for safety compliance themselves.
In addition, the U.S. has been paying to retrofit Mexican trucks with upgraded emissions systems costly about $1,500 per unit. This money, too, came from the taxpayer (you). Has the EPA ever paid for any upgrades to your vehicle? Do you think it ever will?
The NAFTA agreement would give Mexican trucks permanent operating authority in the U.S. after 18 months in a pilot program. (That means they’ll likely be taking American jobs too.) Mexico is pressuring the U.S. government for full and free access to U.S. roads for its trucks under NAFTA. To underline its demands, Mexico has slapped U.S. exports with high tariffs. U.S. government rationales for allowing Mexican trucks free access to U.S. roads focus on repealing the tariffs. Claims are that we’ll lose about 1,550 jobs in the U.S. The available data indicates the affected exports are agricultural and that these 1,550 jobs rest primarily in the agricultural industry. And most agricultural jobs do not seem to go to U.S. nationals.
Government discussions don’t seem to mention the many more thousands of job we’ll lose among U.S. truckers, cargo handlers, distributors and trucking companies once Mexican trucks begin pouring over our borders. Looking at any of the numbers, allowing Mexican trucks free access to U.S. roads can’t satisfy a rational cost-benefit analysis. The numbers we might see from the costs of truck crashes alone once the Mexican trucks start rolling freely across our borders might be truly astronomical.