Former DOT chief: New forces impact NAFTA trade

   The North American Free Trade Agreement has achieved its goal of increasing trade, lowering tariffs and making transportation more efficient during its first 20 years in force, but several trends impacting freight flows were not anticipated by policymakers who crafted the deal in the early 1990s, former transportation secretary Samuel Skinner said Thursday in Chicago.
   “I think by any measure, NAFTA is working. Those that say it isn’t really aren’t dealing with reality,” Skinner said at the NAFTANEXT summit, convened to celebrate the 20th anniversary of NAFTA.
   Skinner, who served as secretary of transportation and White House chief of staff for President George H.W. Bush, said policymakers did not predict the impact on trade from the huge energy production now under way due to new exploration techniques; the role of technology and the Internet, which have changed shipping patterns; budget constraints that have crimped infrastructure investment; the growing role of intermodal freight; and post 9/11 security regimes.
   Skinner is the former chief executive officer of USF Corp., a trucking and logistics company that was acquired by YRC Worldwide in the last decade. He currently is a counselor to international law firm Greenberg Traurig and serves on the board of Echo Global Logistics.