First Mexican Truck to Enter US Within Days

File Photo: Mario Leal, a U.S. Department of Transportation border inspector, explains his evaluation of a Mexican driver's big rig truck in Laredo, TX. The D.O.T. inspectors check trucks for safety violations as they enter the United States from Mexico. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Newsmakers) (Getty Images)

Days before the first Mexican carrier is set to roll into the U.S., union leaders and two California congressmen haven't given up on stopping the cross-border trucking program.

U.S. Reps. Duncan Hunter and Bob Filner said they'll take a bipartisan stand at the border Wednesday in San Diego to voice concerns about the bilateral pilot project, stalled for years by safety concerns, that will allow approved Mexican trucks to come deep into the United States.

Hunter is a San Diego-area Republican, while Filner is a Democrat whose district includes California's border with Mexico.

They will join Teamsters union President James Hoffa and Todd Spencer, the owner-operator of the Independent Drivers Association, in a last-ditch effort to block Mexican trucks from being granted full access to U.S. highways.

Allowing Mexican trucking companies to deliver the goods rather than transfer them onto U.S. haulers at the border will put American jobs and highway safety at risk, the union leaders say.

Washington on Friday approved the first Mexican trucking company, Transportes Olympic, nearly two decades after the hotly contested provision of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement set off lawsuits and a costly trade dispute between the neighboring countries.

Transportes Olympic employees were busy Wednesday finishing the preparations for its historic, maiden trip.

The long-haul truck will cross the border Friday at Laredo, Texas, and head about 450 miles north to Garland, Texas, to deliver industrial equipment, said Guillermo Perez, the transport manager at the firm in the industrial Monterrey suburb of Apodaca, about two hours south of Laredo.

The company was also the first approved under the 2009 pilot program before President Barack Obama's administration cancelled it. Mexico retaliated by placing tariffs on 99 agricultural products worth more than $2 billion annually.

Mexico cut the tariffs in half this summer after Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon approved an inspection and monitoring program for the companies that had been approved in 2009. The Mexican government has vowed to lift the rest once the truck heads out of the border zone Friday.

"We're really excited," Perez said in a telephone interview Wednesday with The Associated Press. "Now we can provide door-to-door service so it's about a 15 percent savings for companies."

Opponents say the fight isn't over.

Hunter has co-authored a bill sponsored by U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., that would require the pilot program to be ceased in three years and Congress to vote on the issue again.

"There's absolutely no upside to the program," said Joe Kasper, a spokesman for Hunter's office. "It's a good example of foreign interests overtaking American interests, at the expense of jobs, security and safety. The program was a bad idea when it was created under NAFTA and it's a bad idea now. It should be stopped right away."

Criminal activity has been a problem for years even within the U.S. government's strictest trusted carrier programs. Drug trafficking organizations have smuggled tons of drugs inside trucks driven by approved truckers coming from inspected and certified facilities inside Mexico.

"The beneficiaries of opening border will be few and the casualties will be plenty," Spencer told The Associated Press on Wednesday. His organization represents small independent trucking businesses.

Proponents say especially strict safeguards are in place: The U.S. government is paying for electronic monitoring devices to be installed in all Mexican trucks used in the program.

Mexican trucking companies had to fill out an application, pay a fee and then submit the names of any drivers who will participate so they can undergo national security and criminal background checks by the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security.

Inspectors will check out the trucks for safety violations, verify the drivers' qualifications and administer oral English-proficiency exams.

The program's long delay has cost companies in both countries millions and hurt bilateral relations, proponents say.

"We certainly hoped that it cannot be stopped," said James Clark, director of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce's Mexico Business Center. "The U.S. has been in violation of the NAFTA agreement ever since the beginning of the trucking issue. Mexican trucks have every right to come into the U.S. under NAFTA as long as the trucks are fully inspected to U.S. standards and the drivers speak English."

About 70 percent of goods from the $4 billion trade between the two nations is transported by land to its destinations according to the Mexican government.

Based on reporting by the Associated Press.

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