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RE: NAFTA
"I see Canadian trucks on the road all the time. Why would they raise this as an issue, but not the Canadians? The easy answer is racism, which is not what I'm implying, but what...lower standards, cheaper wages?"
Everyone loves the Canadians, yay though they may very well have the worst national anthem ever (jury's still out). When we travel, we tell folks we're Canadian a lot due to the fact that Canadian politics just isn't a really hot dinner topic and no one throws the "conflict" in Iraq or the Clinton vs G.W. Bush cards on the table. Tell people you're an American and you're flipping a coin on receiving a positive or negative reaction. Sad, but true. No one has a bone to pick with the Canadians except the lumber industry and South Park-ites.
Mexico however, is another story. They have out of control drug cartels that are smart enough to wage wars with each other on the internet, the US is building a wall and forming militias to curb the number of illegals coming across the border, their human trafficking record is atrocious and now Mexico wants to add tractor trailer trucks to the mix, to make all of these things easier? The Mexican trucking industry probably has pure intensions of free trade and a more open door policy, but the truck drivers themselves are human and there is a lot of money to be made in contraband, human or otherwise. Money talks all over the world and not always in justice's moral favor.
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NAFTA
Obviously there were aspects of NAFTA I missed. I assumed that the NAFTA agreement allowed free trade in North America, including this type of thing. I could see restricting Mexican trucks from operating point-to-point in the US, but they certainly should be allowed to haul to/from Mexico to anywhere in NA in the spirit of the agreement. That said, they would be held to the same highway safety standards and emissions requirements of the states they haul through. I know some people in the transportation industry. If you haul through 3 arbitrary states, you have to meet their axle weight requirements and highway regulations--including emissions. So on that ground, the Sierra Club and the safety concerns should be moot.
As for the Teamsters Union, sounds like another World is Flat example to me, and they need to figure out how they will compete rather than waste energy obfuscating and making excuses. Again, however, the Mexican trucks generally shouldn't be competition for them hauling back and forth within the US, because otherwise they'd have to have a base of operations in the US to remain profitable, implying visas, green cards, etc.
I see Canadian trucks on the road all the time. Why would they raise this as an issue, but not the Canadians? The easy answer is racism, which is not what I'm implying, but what...lower standards, cheaper wages?
If it's lower standards, State Troopers LOVE writing lucrative tickets for bad brakes, over weight limits, speeding, etc. I can't see why a Mexican truck would be exempt from say, Texas highway standards, whereas an Arizona one would not.
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