EL PASO, TEXAS (KFOX14\/CBS4) \u2014 With a key trade deadline looming, labor advocates, environmental groups and community members gathered in El Paso on Saturday, June 20, as part of coordinated Cross-Border Days of Solidarity events across the United States, Canada and Mexico.<\/p>\n
The Texas Fair Trade Coalition said the Days of Solidarity are being held ahead of the July 1 deadline to consider the continuation of the USMCA\/NAFTA trade agreement.<\/p>\n
Organizers said Saturday\u2019s event included a panel discussion on USMCA\/NAFTA, followed by a march to the Bridge of the Americas for a binational gathering.<\/p>\n
Dr. Kathleen Staudt, co-founder of the Community First Coalition and a professor emerita of political science at UTEP who served as a panelist, said her presentation focused on NAFTA\u2019s history and changes made during renegotiation.<\/p>\n
She gave a brief historical overview of NAFTA and discussed some of her research from her book “Border Politics in a Global Era: Comparative Perspectives.<\/p>\n
Staudt said another part of her presentation focused on years of community efforts to remove commercial truck traffic from the Bridge of the Americas, citing pollution concerns tied to heavy cross-border traffic.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe third part of my presentation had to do with how community groups worked for years to try to get trucks off the Bridge of the Americas because in the last presidential administration $750 billion was set aside to modernize the bridge,\u201d Staudt said. <\/p>\n
She also said there are \u201cabout 2,000 semi trucks that cross the bridge daily,\u201d and that trucks waiting in line to cross contribute to pollution that affects nearby neighborhoods.<\/p>\n
Staudt said community groups, U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar and federal agencies worked for years on the issue, and that the Community First Coalition supported those efforts. She said an agreement was reached to reroute trucks off the bridge.<\/p>\n
Staudt also urged residents to engage elected officials and connect with counterparts across the border.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe call to action is for people here to meet with people in Ciudad Juarez because this is very much a grassroots movement,\u201d Staudt said, adding that there are \u201cabout a half dozen of these events taking place at the U.S.-Canada border and also the U.S.-Mexico border.\u201d She also referenced another event: \u201cToday, there is an event in Buffalo, New York connecting with people in Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n
Staudt said she wants \u201cmore members of Congress to stand up because Congress is supposed to sign off on these agreements,\u201d and encouraged people to contact their representative.<\/p>\n
Cemelli de Aztlan, a community organizer with the Texas Fair Trade Coalition, said the gathering was meant to strengthen local organizing around what she described as long-term impacts of NAFTA on El Paso.<\/p>\n
De Aztlan said that the organized effort today in El Paso was to address the lack of attention to the effects of NAFTA, which she said caused 30 years of decimation in El Paso.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday\u2019s purpose, meeting our companerios on El Puente Libra (Bridge of the Americas), the only free port of entry on the U.S.-Mexico border, is to say we are united to not let this happen,\u201d de Aztlan said. \u201cWe are united in solidarity.\u201d<\/p>\n
De Aztlan encouraged community members to participate and contact Escobar.<\/p>\n
\u201cGet involved, Congresswoman Escobar is very much on board,\u201d she said, adding, \u201cWe have the support, and we need you all to get involved.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EL PASO, TEXAS (KFOX14\/CBS4) \u2014 With a key trade deadline looming, labor advocates, environmental groups and community members…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139],"class_list":["post-344391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344391\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}