Mon 10 Sep 2007
In the previous hours, a regular commercial transport truck originating within the United States of Mexico was inspected and cleared towards its final destination far inside the United States of America.
If the underlying political-economic agreement proves stable, certified commercial transport originating at any point within our two nations will now be free to traverse our common territories. In the coming weeks, many of you will see the emblems of Mexican companies for the first time, on trucks traveling the roadways of our forty-nine northern states. As will shortly occur, in converse, for the citizens of our thirty-one southern states.
In the Federal District of Mexico City on Friday, several economists and planners paused to look at the diplomas of Maynard Keynes and Redvers Opie, and consider the meaning of this landmark event upon the long paths we have undertaken toward open trade and free societies, and, against cynicism and pessimism borne of experience, to hope and dream again in the face of this natality.
My thanks to the many Ephs who played various roles in, and fought for this achievement. It has given both pride and immediate hope to the peoples of the thirty-one southern states, but its ultimate meaning may well be found in its impact on the identity and future of all the Americas, its role in buttressing the security and survival of our democracies, and its impact on our common sense of what we may accomplish, together.
September 10th, 2007 at 4:22 am
Ken: I am hopeful but fear that I may be naive - not that my hopes and fears make any cosmic difference.
September 10th, 2007 at 5:41 am
And if it turns out that US truckers can not travel safely in Mexico, due to general safety issues or targeted harassment, so that the benefits of this program accrue to just Mexican truckers and to US corporate elites, how would you propose compensating thousands of US workers for their loss of livelihood?
…just hoping that less than ‘best-case scenarios’ have been gamed out in advance.
September 10th, 2007 at 6:59 am
I share in your optimism but remember the Alamo.
I am sure you looked at this from multiple angles, and I trust your judgement…
Here is to a brighter future for all of mankind, and peace on earth.
September 10th, 2007 at 8:26 am
Is DC really a state? Or can they go through Canada, too?
September 10th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
What kind of koolaid are you drinking…”our 31 southern states”…
September 10th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
“Is DC really a state?”
I’m assuming Alaska was included as one of the “forty-nine northern states”
and that “…’our 31 southern states’…” refers to those of Mexico.
September 10th, 2007 at 6:58 pm
@Anon’89: Congratulatory rhetoric above thrown aside, that is a very difficult question to address , much less clearly and concisely. Probably the most attention right now is going into various border security issues.
At the moment, at least three of the southernmost Mexican states are questionably “governable,” and the idea that any company’s trucks could travel them safely is laughable. Yesterday’s dynamite explosion was originally reported as a terrorist act– of which there are one-to-two a week– and the lack of a secure transport system remains a problem for everyone.
I remain highly concerned that the benefits of free trade may accrue to particular sectors (including businesses) in a manner that is counterproductive– one general story is that US taxpayers have been paying for over a decade to sell corn to Mexico at below production cost, and that has wiped out good portions of the economy of the southern Mexican states, and sent a new tide of workers northward, disrupting the USA’s economy.
Partially true, but there are so many other things going on: interferences from Latin America, China and the far east, Europe… a new style of druglords coupled with transformation of the techniques of the armed “leftist” “revolutionaries” (likely, at the least, informed by Al Quada) and the global backdrop of exchange and migration. Each of these (plus…) has converged to make the Southern Mexican states ungovernable and send their populations northward.
Plus… the most simple economic benefit of this reform is that the trucks don’t get offloaded twice and inspected three times on this journey. The next…
And now I have a call I must take and …
September 10th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
Ken — I appreciate your candor. It is a complex, multivariable change in business practices that seems well planned to increase overall efficiency.
But. (per Peewee Herman, ‘everybody has a big but.’)
Our track record in looking out for working-class Americans has been pretty bad. These are our neighbors and fellow-citizens, and they do play a not insignificant role in looking out for the public safety of the rest of us. It seems the more efficient we get as an economy, the weaker and more hollowed out we become as a community.
September 10th, 2007 at 11:46 pm
89er: Well said on your part, I think. In the time that has passed since I wrote the above, between office crises and such, I had a few occasions to think something like “we need some fundamental changes in how we address these issues.”
Let me answer your question directly: if USA drivers cannot travel in the USM with the same general privileges as USM truckers, the USA should suspend the agreement and sue the USM.
There are certainly going to be problems on both sides. How we deal with them is what is crucial.
[WARNING: BEGIN KEYBOARD DIA-REAH-A.]
Some extended thoughts:
(Some friends at KPMG in Chicago surprised me last year, by simply saying “we’ve raped Mexico,” and showing me their data. As we’ve made advances via trade, there’s certainly been a tendency for the same, intentionally or not, to happen to “workers”– citizens– in the United States.)
Continuing the scattershot approach above ‘briefly:’ one of the primary concerns I’ve seen voiced by multinationals operating in Mexico– and by people at Ford in particular– is the insecurity of their supply chain to operations in Mexico. The fact that you can’t rely on trucking to get it there (on time or otherwise) in Mexico has been a strong factor in the net loss of factory operations from the USM in the past decade or so; and it represents a serious factor that results in businesses, small and large, being unable to operate with a profit of any kind.
(Where have those factory workers gone? The facile answer is to the USA, at some cost to the USA, [though there are counter-arguments that say immigration is a net positive and counter-arguments that note that the numbers don't add up: either there are far more Mexicans living in the USA (likely), trained Mexicans are migrating elsewhere in larger numbers (also likely), or...])
If Ford can rely on a USA partner company to run the supply chain all the way from the USA or Canada to its operations in Mexico, it may be able to afford to maintain its operations profitably in Mexico– operations which, in the end, create both jobs in Mexico, lower cost vehicles available to the Mexican/Latin American markets (not to the USA), and a more developed Mexican economy which will trade with the USA. (OK, “theoretically,” and ignoring a number of economic projections).
That seems a “win:” a richer, more developed and stable Mexico should be better for the USA, mean more people who can purchase USA goods and services and fewer low/no-skill immigrants (many of whom are from indigenous cultures that do not speak Spanish, much less English) pouring northward across our border.
Nice vision, good speech, reality is harder to understand. How good is this rhetoric in explaining our reality?
I pass. But it is clear enough that this argument is too facile. And community?
As for “gaming”, one problem is that we (Mex.) have three economic teams, all with different datasets, analyses and scenarios, and every incentive to compete instead of co-operate and share– much less share frank data & analysis with the USA. (Remind you of the CIA/FBI?) (It is heartening that the Calderon camp has been remarkably rational re: economic proposals, and last week’s budget is more or less what “we” would have proposed in July of ‘06, minus the tax & spending cuts… but at least we are going to see the infrastructural & scientific investments.)
In the end, I think– perhaps it is hope against reality– that USA carriers operating in Mexico will have a stabilizing effect: that the USA carriers will learn to work effectively within ‘local conditions–’ which will surely mean paying for their security at times– and that this will also lead to both greater stability in the 31 Mexican states, and a United States of America that is more far knowledgeable of, and more integrated with, the United States of Mexico.
In the end one of the great things Ford and others could do is enact “public/private solutions” to security on the roads; one of the key aspects of such solutions is “Americans on the ground” in Mexico… and one of the key aspects of this moment, parallel to the similar moment is Europe over a decade ago, is the possibility of realizing our fate depends on the state of the roads in Mexico.
I am sketching an argument for cooperation and interdependence.
Without an Anne Stevens at Ford, though…
I will need to think for a while on your concerns re: losses to US workers, pass the question around, and attempt to make sure I’m not overly optimistic or biased. (Indeed I am.) By no means do I know anyone who is trying to accurately measure potential losses to US workers or sectors due to this portion of the NAFTA. But the general counterargument goes something like, “Mexico is a market partner and not a threat (per se); the benefits of open trade and efficiency outweigh…”
Who are ‘we’ forgetting about there? It _is_ clear to me, looking backwards, that large portions of the US (including the 14.7% of Tennessee households which live on less than $10K/yr) have suffered real losses from how NAFTA was implemented — though NAFTA was hardly “free trade…” Regardless, the USA has a shortage of drivers and I’d guess we’d have seen strong trucking industry opposition in the USA without that.
And I guess I’d footnote that with the comment that how we’ve (pointing mostly at the USA) pursued NAFTA (with respect to some particular Ephs) reveals a lot of abstract ignorance of how Mexico really operates, economically, politically and culturally. (Over a year ago I found the phrase “a perfect dictatorship:” also too broad a brush, but darn close, with international power politics and US, Chinese and European government and intelligence efforts mixed in).
I also fear greatly that what I’ve learned in the past year is that Europe and China are learning/defining the new geopolitical game faster than we (plural: USA and USM) are, and there may be enormous negative consequences. (One advantage to the Obrador “loss” may have been that it prevented a sudden and dramatic solidification of Europe’s sphere of influence in the Americas).
As for your concerns for community, as with the economic justice issues I began this with, and the intelligence issues, I fear we (both United States) are not very good at this, that we’re (more the USA there) are often burying our heads in sand, and that our political structures and parties at this point, are simply not capable of absorbing– say, the good advice and intelligence and counsel that the DIA, CIA, State etc. have been providing on Mexico’s situation.
Hell, State’s been acting on its own here and you might as well call it salutatory neglect…
I’m now risking “look at me” here– which may be one of our political problems– but what I’m thinking is that to address your concerns, the USA has some rebuilding to do, and we have to create new political forms and institutions for a very different age. (We have to prove ourselves capable of solving a health care crisis…; we need intelligence…)
We need to be so close to Mexico and the Congo etc. that it’s impossible to conceive that China or the EU could begin an economic alliance, or pursue a currency strategy, without a US citizen being in the room.
How stupid and pointless is that? Foreign Policy covered much of what I know about the devaluation of the dollar: and Ethan Zuckermann covered that. Big deal if we can’t formulate a response to what everyone knows.
So where I’m stumbling here is that on the one hand our politics has become remarkably insular (ever notice that the Presidency of Williams has the same problems as the Presidency of the USA, but people blame and ridicule the individual in the office, not the political structure which leads to poor decision-making…?); on the other hand,
(interrupted again;…)
and now it is election day in Nashville,
September 12th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
I give thanks for the recent senate vote, 74-24, to cut the funding for the US DOT’s Cross-Border Trucking Pilot Program. Our nation’s safety and security should never be put to risk. I thank Senators Dorgan (ND-D) and Arlen Specter (PA-R) for offering the amendment to cut off funds.
Before I address an answer to your blog, I would like to speak about your blog title: Isolationism’s End. We often hear about the “isolationism” of the United States of America. This hucksterism of using meanings in distorted ways in order to achieve outcomes outside of the charter of nations has been a common tool of our common enemies. The european countries and the United States have never been isolationist. The european states colonized virtually the entire globe. The United States colonized North America. We even attempted to colonize Canada and parts of Hispanic Empire of greater Mexico. In the post colonial period we have extended trade routes to ensure access to markets and material resources. If by isolationism you really mean not desirous of amalgamating an entire population of indians south of the border, then we need to ask ourselves is this in the best and most productive interests of separate nation-states? This decision which you decry as ending isolationism is not about isolationism for we do not practice isolationism. In point of fact, we are being invaded by strangers in numbers that exceed our ability to successfully absorb their presence.
Then you speak of our “southern states”? The southern states you refer to do not belong to us but are the sovereign states of the state of Mexico. What are you referring to? Are you proposing that you support the NAU? Does this support accord with the charter of the Confederation of the United States and the interests of its people? Whom do you represent? Where are your loyalties?
Then you speak of “open trade and free societies”? You mean you support open borders. You oppose nationalist policies, am I not correct? You are an internationalist, correct? I believe you do not believe in free societies, but I believe you believe in TQM societies, correct? “Natality”? Natality refers to the birthrate or the mortality rate as a statistic. What are you suggesting with the use of this word? There is no cynicism nor pessimism borne of experience for the American people, except the stress of watching our jobs leave our shores, the transfer of intellectual property rights to foreigners who have no interest in their development, and by standing by our politicians who have transferred the wealth of generations to usurers.
Then you speak as of this Act as having an Eph role. Are you suggesting that Williams College, under the sponsorship of Colonel Ephraim Williams, in terms of the will in founding this school, would have supported and fought for this achievement? Is this an Eph-Adventure? How does this act give pride and hope to the peoples south of our border? I lived in Mexico. They love their nation.
How does are merging, so to speak, buttress the security and survival of our democracies? First we were founded as a Republic. The founders detested democracies in that they are mob rule. Certainly this term began being used in earnest following the turn of the 20th century. Do you know the difference between a democracy and a republic? Read the contract! Common sense?
You give sound bites like the democrats and the republicans that liberally feel you up with no substance. You walk away feeling warm inside, without content and form. This predatory mind control programming may be a turn on for lower social development types like yourself, but you are speaking to sentient higher development type scholars, students and citizens who love this planet, this nation, its distinct peoples and the right of all peoples to self-determination and respect. Your tomfoolery with internationalism is unacceptable, except to control operators like yourself.