MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) โ Mexico has announced plans to raise tariffs on almost 90 U.S. exports, Mexican and U.S. officials confirmed Monday. The new trade measures are in retaliation for the cancellation earlier this year of a U.S. commercial trucking project and will target U.S. industrial and agricultural products delivered to Mexico, Mexicoโs state-run news agency said. Mexicoโs Economic Secretary Gerardo Ruiz Mateos called the cancellation of the program a breach of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the agency said. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the trucking project was killed in the 2009 omnibus appropriations bill, but President Barack Obama has asked his administration to create a new program. โCongress has opposed the project in the past because of concerns about the process that led to the programโs establishment and its operation,โ Gibbs said. The project allowed a small number of Mexican trucks to enter the United States beyond the normal commercial zones, and allowed some U.S. trucks the same privilege in Mexico. Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, warned that the Mexican action would harm American businesses. โUnfortunately, this is a predictable reaction by the Mexican government to a policy that now puts the United States in clear violation of the North American Free Trade Agreement and was inappropriately inserted into the omnibus appropriations bill,โ McCain said after learning of the Mexican governmentโs plans. McCain said Washington โmust take steps to prevent escalation of further protectionist measures โ actions that only serve to harm American business during these tough economic times when these businesses need a worldwide marketplace to prosper.โ โThis is another reason why the president should have vetoed the omnibus spending bill,โ McCain added.
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Kathryn Jean Lopez is a senior fellow at the National Review Institute and the religion editor of National Review. Sign up for her weekly newsletter here. She is the author of A Year with the Mystics: Visionary Wisdom for Daily Living.
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