Aug. 11 Daily News editorial

The fifth annual North American Leaders Summit brought no meaningful progress toward resolving trade disputes over Mexican trucks and U.S. “Buy American” rules. President Barack Obama, Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper concluded their two-day meeting in Guadalajara on Monday by basically agreeing to disagree on U.S. trade policy — a policy that has taken a disturbingly protectionist turn in recent months.

This summit failure is very concerning. These trade disputes already have cost all three countries dearly, and those costs can only grow. Blame a protectionist-leaning U.S. Congress and largely complicit Obama administration. Both have chosen political expediency over the nation’s clear economic interest in maintaining vigorous cross-border trade under the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The fact is, the U.S. has been in violation of that agreement since 2000, the year NAFTA called for Mexican long-haul truckers to have full access to U.S. highways. Congress, at the behest of an influential Teamsters union has steadfastly refused to honor that provision of the treaty. The Bush administration managed to put a pilot program in place in 2007 allowing a limited number of Mexican trucks access to U.S. roads. But Congress shut down that program last March. The president quietly went along with the action.

Mexico’s patience ran out soon afterward. It retaliated by slapping 20 percent tariffs on U.S. agricultural products. That retaliation — perfectly legal in response to the U.S. treaty violation — will bring considerable economic pain to Washington growers, who last year exported $87 million in goods to Mexico. Mexico now is expected to look to South American growers to replace U.S. exports. Some Washington officials the Mexican market may never come back.

The “Buy American” provision attached to the $787 billion stimulus package approved earlier this year also threaten to exact a high economic price. The provision, which requires that stimulus-financed projects use U.S.-made materials, already has imposed significant cost on our largest trading partner. Canada now is posed to respond in kind. “Millions of jobs are at stake on both sides of the border,” British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell warned in a recent interview with Time Magazine.

The Obama administration had an opportunity to defuse these costly trade disputes at the Guadalajara summit. It failed to seize that opportunity, putting both our largest trade relationships and the national economy at further risk. This administration must provide leadership with regard to adhering to sensible trade policy, and soon. The price of continuing to cave to political expediency is just too great.