Mexican truck makes U.S. history

Busines people do not have much to cheer about in the current debate in the United States about immigration, or about the sentiment animating this debate. What does business want? Simple: Free flow of capital, labor, and products. Much of the debate about immigration these days is about restricting such flows. Well, at least there is one front — trucking — which bucks this trend. This past Saturday in Laredo, Texas, Mexican truck driver Luis González set in motion a one-year trial program which has broken a ten-year free-trade impasse. Hauling a 20,000-pound shipment of steel, González became the first Mexican trucker to cross the border under a controversial Department of Transportation (DOT) program aimed at satisfying one of the last outstanding components of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). His truck underwent more than two hours of inspections just south of the border before driving without fanfare into the United States.

In the process, González illustrated a point that San Antonio political and business leaders have been trying to make for more than a decade: The Alamo City could become a hub for NAFTA-related truck traffic with the opening of the border. The first destination along González’s more than 1,500-mile journey from Monterrey: a Valero truck stop at Interstate 35 North and Fischer Road. He stopped there at 4:30 a.m., slept in the cab and had Subway for lunch before hitting the road again after 3 p.m. González, like all truckers in the United States, is allowed under law to work a maximum of fourteen hours in a shift, eleven of them behind the wheel. He must then rest for ten hours. González drives one of the thirty-five trucks belogning to Nuevo León-based Transportes Olympic, and two of those are authorized to operate in the United States. The company’s trucks were cleared late Thursday to operate in the United States despite several attempts by Congress and organized labor to stop the DOT pilot program. The one-year pilot program plans to open the U.S. southern border to truckers from up to 100 Mexican carriers. At most, 540 trucks are expected to enter the United States under the program, according to court documents filed by the DOT. Up to 100 U.S. carriers also will gain access to the Mexican market.

González’s journey to North Carolina, where the steel he is hauling will be used in the construction of a Baptist church, will take him through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and South Carolina. He criticized the current cross-border hauling procedure of using three trucks — one to go from the Mexican interior to the border, a second to cross the border, and a third to drive into the U.S. interior. It is too expensive, takes too much time and is more likely to result in cargo damage, he said. Although NAFTA requires American, Mexican, and Canadian truckers to be authorized to operate in all three countries, most Mexican truckers have not been allowed beyond a twenty-five-mile border zone. The United States banned Mexican trucks from going any farther in 1982 because Mexico did not allow U.S. truckers on its roads. Canada and the United States faced a similar situation at that time but quickly resolved it. Cross-border trucking provisions included in NAFTA were meant to end the U.S.-Mexico trucking dispute, but the provisions sparked another battle — this one involving organized labor, environmental groups, truckers from both sides of the border, and the U.S. and Mexican governments.

Note that Mexican truckers participating in the program can only deliver cargo directly from Mexico to a U.S. destination and from a U.S. destination to Mexico. No deliveries are allowed between U.S. cities. A smooth pilot program could give NAFTA’s trucking provisions a better chance at full implementation and San Antonio a better chance at becoming an international logistics hub.