Amercian alliance formed to end trucking dispute

WASHINGTON, D.C. — It’s a move right out of a reality TV show, but more than 150 U.S. manufacturers have formed an alliance.

The companies and agricultural interests formed the Alliance to Keep U.S. Jobs recently and plan to press the Obama administration and Congress to resolve an ongoing U.S.-Mexico trade dispute that has hampered U.S. firms’ ability to sell some $2.4 billion worth of manufactured and agricultural products bound for Mexico.

U.S. industries ranging from cherry farmers to carbonless paper manufacturers joined the Alliance because they had become “innocent victims of a lengthy political dispute,” said Steve Mulder, the Alliance’s spokesman.

As Mulder explained it, these industries, and nearly 90 others, were subjected to tariffs by the Government of Mexico only days after the U.S. Congress terminated a U.S. pilot cross-border trucking program, an act that put the United States in violation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Mexico has said it will not remove the tariffs until the U.S. government reinstates the cross-border program or otherwise adheres to the NAFTA accord, under which Mexican trucks are permitted to enter the U.S. and U.S. trucks may likewise enter Mexico.

The Obama Administration has promised action, including the promised release of principals for a new cross-border trucking program. But so far no details have been released.
 


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