Mexico Imposes Taxes on US Exports, Business Hurt

The Obama Administration is certainly making its fair share of friends today. I’m glad to see they’re doing a better job than Bush when it came to keeping costs low regarding US exports among trading allies…

A long-simmering trade dispute boiled over into sanctions on Monday after Mexico said it would raise tariffs on $2.4bn of US exports in retaliation for ending a pilot programme to allow Mexican trucks on American roads.

The announcement marks one of the first big tests for trade policy under President Barack Obama, who has sought to tread a fine line between assuaging his domestic constituencies and upholding the US’s international obligations.

Mexico said it would increase tariffs on 90 industrial and agricultural goods, likely to include politically sensitive farm products, after Congress last week killed a pilot programme allowing a limited number of Mexican trucks on American highways. Mexico obtained a judicial ruling in 2001 under the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) allowing it to impose such sanctions, but has held off since the US introduced the pilot scheme.

UPDATE: HotAir has suggested that the reason for the move is because those truckers are not unions. Only God knows how much unions manage to screw everything economically…Another reason to be against the EFCA a/k/a the union measure to kill the secret ballot.