- BitsBlog - https://bitsblog.com -

BO Starts a Trade War with Mexico

Barack Obama [1]Barack Obama campaigned on a promise of Hope and Change.  There doesn’t appear to be much hope for Hope, but BO is sure bring on the Change, albeit all bad.   BO and his fellow ‘rats in Congress have started a trade war with Mexico   If it can be but played on his teleprompter, Obama would discover what William Barret Travis learned at the Alamo, the Mexicans shoot back and their aim is pretty good.

Forbes [2]:

Mexico announced, effective March 19, tariff increases ranging between 10% and 45% on 90 products whose imports from the U.S. amount to $2.4 billion. This was done because President Obama earlier in the month signed a spending bill that removed funding for a pilot program that allowed designated Mexican trucks to bring cargo directly to destinations in the U.S. Mexico’s retaliation was neither rash nor hurried in that this issue has been in dispute since 1995.

The U.S. government agreed in the North American Free Trade Agreement to allow Mexican trucks to bring cargo to destinations in the four border states (California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas) in 1995, and this action was “delayed” at the urging of the U.S. Teamsters Union.

Investor’s Business Daily [3]:

The impact of the truck decision is amazingly high. Mexico is our third-largest trade partner, with $370 billion in two-way annual trade. In exchange for taking Mexican trucks off our roads, American companies will now have to pay $2.4 billion in Mexican tariffs.

It will cost 40,000 U.S. jobs at a time when the economy can ill afford it. It will also raise costs as trucks exchange goods to new trucks near the border. It also lifts the potential for crime and supply-chain risk. That’s something, considering that the average number of trucks affected by the U.S. pilot program to permit the Mexican trucks beyond a small border zone was . . . three.

Two point four billions in tariffs in exchange for killing a one hundred truck pilot program.  That is change we can live without. 

BO is fond of soaring campaign rhetoric.   Sadly for us, BO can not make the connection between grand sounding campaign promises and the grim reality real world policy decisions.   Real world policy cuts both ways.  Obama campaigned as if he could simply dictate to the Mexican government his new terms for NAFTA, and they would simply bow down to his demands.  Ain’t happening.   Isn’t about to happen.  This ain’t Chicago   Welcome to the real world BO.