03/23/2009
Rich Lowry on National Review protests Obama’s intention to continue with the last two administrations in requiring Mexican trucks not to go more than 20 miles into America before offloading:
This creates extra jobs, but at the cost of some $200 million to $400 million a year in economic inefficiency. We're lucky that rickshaw operators don’t have a union as powerful as the Teamsters or all the goods would have to be transported around the country under human power.
Our third-largest trading partner, the Mexicans have retaliated by saying they will impose tariffs on 90 U.S. industrial and agricultural products, worth $2.4 billion in 2007. So the cost of this "victory" against Mexican trucking will be borne by farmers and manufacturers around the country. The tit for tat is unlikely to escalate into a full-blown trade war, but we send a dreadful signal by violating a trade agreement at a time when protectionist pressures are rising worldwide.
Pres. Barack Obama says he'll find a way to address Mexico’s complaint consistent with safety concerns. Since those concerns are a proxy for flat-out opposition to Mexican trucking, it’s not clear how that’s possible.[Don’t Keep on Truckin' by Rich Lowry on National Review Online, March 20, 2009]
This is what Steve Sailer means when he says "Mexican immigrants are a new phenomenon to America’s media establishment."
Lowry, who’s in New York, can’t imagine that allowing Mexican trucks driven by Mexican drivers loose on American interstates could possibly be unsafe. Actually, it would probably result in a lot of dead Americans. See the writings of Brenda Walker for the amount of damage with nothing more than a pickup truck.
Here’s the Travel Advisory for Mexico from a Canadian government site:
Mexican styles of driving and road safety standards are very different from those in Canada. Police do not regularly patrol the highways. Be prepared for vehicles that fail to observe speed limits or indicate lane changes, and that do not stop at red lights. Pedestrians should be extremely cautious at all times. Fatal hit-and-run accidents occur.
The American Department of State, by contrast, says that the roads in Mexico are dangerous, but is unwilling to say that the drivers are. That’s because they'd get complaints from Mexican-American Congressmen.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.