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The beginning of NAFTA

After many years of dealing and wheeling between the USA and Mexico the final touches have been put into action. I have followed this politics from day 1 when president George Bush Sr. and President Carlos Salinas de Gotari signed the agreement to build a bridge 18 miles from Laredo in an almost a deserted area of Webb County (which borders the state of Nuevo Leon, Mexico). President Salinas de Gotari a resident of Nuevo Leon and President Bush of Texas. It has been a struggle to have the rights to own the international trade which is very valuable and is the biggest business we have. The twin sisters of Laredo and Nuevo Laredo are located 150 miles from any big city in both countries and most likely though off as mediocre in the sense of being able to play hard ball with big investments and playing the world trade game who everybody would like to have a good piece of the pie. In the pass few years the bridges that connect both countries have been a game of who has the most power to control. Millions in dollars were been spent in studies and battles between politicians and major investors for control were the norm for city and county for another vehicular and railroad bridge. The struggles never materialize and investors withdrew all bits for building anything. Laredo has now worked with the Texas Department of Highways (TxDot ) and bridges and overpasses were made to clear the railroad tracks at major highway in the city eliminating traffic jams.
The Juarez – Lincoln Bridge II was built to alleviate the traffic between the sister cities. When the trade kicked in high gear in the years of 1995 I was part of staff with the Laredo Fire Department and heavily involved in training the Nuevo Laredo Fire and Protection Civil.
Fire Chief Mike B. Perez with 25 years as Fire Chief could see into the future of the city and what took more than 25 years to fix. Staff could see that Haz-Mat was going to be a big issue when it came down to safety. With assistance of federal government, Chemtrec and World Environmental Center de Mexico we did bi-National haz-mat exercises, disaster drills and bi-national agreements that started the ball rolling.
Later after my retirement from the fire department and working with Boots and Coots Special Services out of Houston I continue training in haz-maz in Monterrey and other major ports of entry into Mexico and the US. Nuevo Laredo and Laredo Fire Department slowly started to separate and other ideas surface but never matured into reality due to changes in government.
When time came for working again for the City of Laredo Environmental Services a major change took place with Federal Motor Carriers Safety Agency coming into play and inspectors where more active and federal regulations coming up with more and more red tape and creating chaos for freight forwarders in Laredo. I probably was the only consulting person doing Security Plans, Training, Haz-Waste removal without having to hide or cheat in the process. I made contacts with federal inspectors held bi-national conferences with Texas Commission in Environmental Quality and Texas A&M International (TAMIU). The World Trade Bridge came on line with access to the warehouse district at the edge on the border.
All along this time political people where making plans for shipping lanes and who was going to get the big piece of the pie the state of Tamaulipas or the state of Neon Leon, Mexico. The World Trade was very successful except that Haz-mat was not approved to cross the World Trade Bridge. That caused a big headache for those freight forwarders’ whose patent was to cross only in the state of Tamaulipas. The fight was on for those shipping lanes and control of trade for haz-mat products.
I feel like over confidence is a killer when you are brain washed into lucrative ideas that make no sense. A prime example was building a road from Columbia Bridge to IH-35 and over passing Laredo and Nuevo Laredo. The City of San Antonio and what I guess is Monterrey offered the closed Kelly Air Force base in San Antonio as the base for storage. Anyone could have told them that Laredo was the first choice because of Customs offices are where all the paperwork has to be done and if any confrontation occur it just a skip and hop to the Custom Broker office for immediate repairs.
Imagine having to get a signature or correcting a BL, it’s a long way to Kansas City. Custom patents are mostly for Tamaulipas and Texas because of the close proximity and long lasting business endeavors. Thinking you can skip the middle man sometimes has its drawbacks especially since they have been around long before trade systems were even thought off. Transfers or drayage companies are more effective means of transportation of goods between borders and work hand in hand with freight forwarders.
City politicians in their platforms’ for elections’ always raised these issues as a campaign deal. When doing training in Central and South America’s airports I learned a couple of things from examples of deals gone sour when investments were made and resulted in bad decisions made to bad advise. Nobody likes to share the pie if there is possibility of losing the pie. Laredo was a city who stood in the center of trade and holding the ace in the pocket. The one thing I have learned from all of these years is that the private sector are the ones who deal and wheel and federal, state and city official only have the right to do what the voters want and once it’s pass it has to be done regardless of your after opinion. The Laredo Mayor Raul Salinas and City Manager along with Nuevo Laredo and Laredo Investors took a long shot and made it happen with trade agreements that became a reality.
I kept up with haz-mat and made comments to local newspaper on both sides without getting feed back on my articles. I did several suggestions on what haz-mat products could be crossed without having immediate effect on our only water source the Rio Grand River. I offered free training to the Nuevo Laredo Fire and Proteccion Civil and no feed back.
For years I researched why we had to cross all haz-mat on the Nuevo Leon side of the border and it was a US and Mexican Customs decision not a federal mandate. Well that had a happy ending when I was shown pictures of the World Trade Bridge building Haz-Mat recovery systems made for collection of liquids under the World Trade Bridge III. Nuevo Laredo and Laredo made the ditch for home base and won the game. Now we are talking all commodities of haz-mat and all will flow both ways.
A few weeks ago the first national trucking company passed the World Trade Bridge with a cargo going pass the Border Patrol check point 28 miles north on IH-35.
That was a deal President Bill Clinton made to lower tariffs in between countries. Now that we are in a bad economy the sun is starting to shine again.
We might have to deal with human issues like dislikes between nationalities but truck drivers will always be truck drivers and will have to have peace between them and Union members. I have traveled some with and without GPS and it not easy finding my way around. So it’s not a walk in the park for Mexican drivers using USA freeways as most of us think and the same will be for American drivers when there time will come to cross into Mexico. When I was in the US Army in Europe drivers were just driver doing a job and manage to cross borders. In the US we have strict regulations that have to be met so if Mexico can do it so can American drivers. Hispanic drivers who work for no union companies can very well be in a common life style of there own and prefer to travel into Mexico instead of fighting snowed highways and probably capable of visiting relatives in Mexico at the same time.
Laredo has made a deal with the state of San Luis Potosi in Mexico and I have traveled that super highway and it’s a clean shot for American drivers to follow to the biggest distribution point in Mexico without having to refuel between points at this time. Mexico is building truck stops that will be the same as in the US and that will change the way drivers think of hospitably in Mexico. One thing is for sure for the drivers, they will have a different menu to look at the truck stops for both the US and Mexican drivers.
It was a long time coming to this point but feel that I was part of history in my own little way of showing that thru training in fire and haz-mat safety big things will happen and God Speed for Laredo and Nuevo Laredo it has happen. With more lanes being added at the bridge cargo will flow faster and more efficiently and Green… lowering emissions in the air.
NAFTA is alive and kicking in the sister cities of Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, Mx. and Laredo, Texas of the USA.