The Mexican trucking companies also filed a $4 billion lawsuit in Brownsville, Texas, against the U.S. government for violating NAFTA regulations that called for allowing long-haul trucks from Mexico to travel freely into California, Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico starting in 1995. The trade pact was signed by the U.S., Canadian, and Mexican governments in 1994.

"By its behavior the U.S. continues to violate the treaty," said José Muñoz, head of Mexico’s national transportation ministry May 2. The U.S. government has refused to allow trucks in even after a NAFTA arbitration panel ruled last year in favor of Mexico in the dispute.

Instead, Washington has unilaterally maintained a series of measures that prohibit Mexican truckers from traveling more than 20 miles into the United States, forcing them to transfer their cargo onto trucks owned by U.S. companies. One such ploy has been to impose strict safety checks and insurance requirements that delay Mexican trucks at the border. U.S. trucking companies and government officials claim the measures are needed because Mexican trucks pose a "safety" and environmental threat to the U.S. public.

The Teamsters union officialdom along with some environmental organizations have actively campaigned for Congress to extend these restrictions. On May 1 the Teamsters joined a lawsuit filed in San Francisco that seeks an emergency injunction to block legislation that would open U.S. highways to Mexican trucks.

"Trucks that cross our border from Mexico must meet U.S. emission standards," said Teamster president James Hoffa. "Unless these standards are met, we should not allow these trucks to further pollute the air we breathe." Similar arguments have been used by both Democratic and Republican politicians supporting the protectionist legislation.

Meanwhile, Mexican president Vicente Fox suspended for the next seven months a 20 percent import tax on high-fructose corn. The tax was approved by the Mexican Congress in January following protests by thousands of sugar and corn growers. The farmers demanded government protection from the massive imports from U.S. companies that were flooding the market in Mexico, wiping out domestic production of sugar and corn used for making syrup. Before the measure was adopted the syrup was being brought into the country with zero tariffs. The tax was also in response to Washington’s refusal to allow Mexico to sell 650,000 tons of sugar in the U.S. market without any tariffs as established by the NAFTA agreement.

News articles published in the big-business press have also noted the impact of the economic crisis on workers employed at plants on the Mexican side of the border.

The San Diego Union Tribune reported that the number of workers employed by the export oriented plants, better known as maquiladoras, recently dropped from a peak of 1.5 million to 1.3 million. Many companies reported laying off workers for the first time in a decade. Big employers like auto parts maker Delphi Corp., Mexico’s largest private employer, cut its workforce by nearly 15,000 as international orders declined.

In Ciudad Juarez alone, in the border state of Chihuahua, bosses fired 45,000 out of 257,000 workers, according to the San Diego Union Tribune.

In the country as a whole some half a million workers have lost their jobs since President Fox came to power in December 2000. Last April he announced that a $1.1 million cut in social spending, the fourth cut during his administration, was necessary in order to confront the country’s budget deficit.  
 
 
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