How Obama’s Pandering To Unions Hurt America’s Economy

As our economy continues to struggle, one move made by Obama while pandering to his friends in the unions that directly hurt our economy by inspiring trade tariffs from one of our closest trading partners is getting overlooked. That move was stopping a program which allowed Mexican truckers to deliver goods originating in Mexico directly to American locations.
The unions hated this program because it stopped the practice of Mexican truckers having to drop their loads at the border to be picked up by unionized American truckers, at a greater expense to all involved (except the union members) which is passed on to the end consumer. So when Obama came into office he ended it. Which means that not only are goods made in Mexico and sold to Americans more expensive for Americans, thus hurting the purchasing power of their dollar, but American companies who sell goods in Mexico got slapped with a couple of billion in new tariffs.

Obama is expected to get some heat from Calderon to resolve a cross-border trucking dispute.
Under the North American Free Trade Agreement, Mexican trucks are supposed to be allowed to cross into the United States, but American trucking companies charge Mexican trucks are not safe. The issue has festered for years.
Mexico imposed retaliatory tariffs of $2.4 billion in U.S. goods in March after Obama signed a bill canceling a program allowing Mexican trucks to operate beyond the U.S. border zone.
U.S. business groups have been pressing the White House to resolve the dispute, saying the ban threatens to eliminate thousands of U.S. jobs.

In the grand scheme of our economy this trade war with Mexico is relatively small potatoes. But even so, Obama has been so desperate to portray his deficit spending on the “stimulus” package that he’s been routinely touting job creation numbers locally in the hundreds or thousands.
Well, snubbing a trade agreement with our southern neighbors for no other reason than to please his protectionist union friends has cost us thousands of jobs and driven up the price of goods from Mexico in our markets. Obama deserves criticism for that.