Letter to the Editor, Posted: 12/8/04
To the editor:
Numerous provisions in the so-called ěfree tradeî agreements are chipping away at our nationís sovereignty. The NAFTA pact of 1993, for instance, contained a little known provision mandating that, by the year 2000, our nationís southern border must be opened wide to all trucks entering from Mexico. Once this provision was discovered, trucking union officials and environmentalists lodged a formal complaint about it, and a federal appeals court ordered that a study be conducted to address legitimate concerns about safety and air pollution.
But in June 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court, backed by the Bush administration, ordered the opening of all roads to Mexicoís trucks. In effect, the ruling and the attitude of the Bush administration held that the provision of NAFTA superseded a decision of our nationís courts.
The flood of trucks now expected to cross the border means that there is no way U.S. inspectors can possibly check the cargoes in all of these vehicles. We are left with questions about what those cargoes might contain. Illegal immigrants? Weapons? Terrorists? Drugs? U.S. border officials no longer have the capability of guaranteeing that vehicles entering our nation are free of dangerous contraband.
NAFTA has produced many harmful consequences but the bottom line is that it isnít mainly about trade, or even about borders. Itís about our nationís independence. And the proposed FTAA threatens consequences even more harmful than what has been produced by the 1993 NAFTA pact. Congressmen and senators must say ěNo!î to the FTAA when it comes before them in 2005.
Ralph W. Carlson
Harris
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