The Strange U.S.-Mexico Used-Car Trade

Any discussion of the U.S.-Mexico border — specifically in the wake of the Texas presidential primary — seems destined to focus on people coming into the U.S., not products heading the other direction. But that’s just what the New York Times’ Wheels blog hits on today: The number of vehicles flying from the U.S. across the Mexican border is creating what Mexican officials are calling the “accelerated conversion of our country into the world’s biggest automotive garbage dump.”

Used-car dealers along the border have made a killing selling 15-year-old used American trucks to Mexican consumers with limited budgets. Now the Mexican government is doing its best to limit those sales. In the near future, only one model year — 1998 — will be allowed to be sold used in Mexico. In the long term, however, a provision in NAFTA — another hot primary topic sure to fizzle — is set to deregulate the sales even further, allowing more recent models to cross the border and, depending on your perspective, serve a car-thirsty Mexican consumer base or exploit a developing country’s poor.

Why Is the 1998 Ford F-150 No. 1 on Mexico’s Most Wanted List? (Wheels)

Comments

[auto news]

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[auto news]

www.alabalee.com

[Al]

So what, exactly is wrong with:

a) A Mexican being able to afford a cheap used car instead of no car.
b) A Mexican being able to increase his quality of life and standard of living through enhanced earning potential by having a car.
c) The savings in resources by extending the car's life.
d) The reduction in US scrap heap inventory.
e) The relocation of older, less fuel efficient and more polluting vehicles in the US to an area where there are less vehicles so the environment impact of the vehicle is less.

Sounds more like socialism at work to me with leaders proclaiming "Let them drive Mercedes-Benzs" while in reality everyone walks.

[Adrian]

Al,

Excellent point. I couldn't have said it better myself.

[Infosaur]

I might also ask: How many cars "for sale" in Mexico were actually "purchased" in the United States?

Amazing what you can "buy" with a crowbar and hammer drill.

[Omar Khamisa]

we have cars to export , we are the exporter

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