The NAFTA Desk

I’ve decided that the time is right to dedicate an ENTIRE blog just my internship. Brace yourself people, here it comes.

Things have gotten pretty intense in my office this past week because there’s been some important stuff going down. I’m gonna explain the wholestory (which may or may not be boring to those reading – I apologize inadvance), because otherwise it’s hard to understand. Plus I think it’sinteresting, and I honestly never thought I would be so interested in such things until now.

Now keep in mind that obviously my views on the whole thing are slightly swayed due to working at the Mexican Embassy (vs., for example, the US Embassy in Mexico where I’m sure the interns have very different opinions)… oh and also a side note, nothing in this blog is representative of the Embassy of Mexico, or it’s positions, it’s is all just based on what I’ve read, learned and personal opinion (I figure I should throw that in there seeing as the last thing I wanna do at my internship is find myself speaking for the Embassy).

Anyways, I’ll keep it relatively short and sweet…

Ok, so first of all, over the past few years there has been a program through NAFTA called the Demonstration Program. It allowed for Mexican trucks to cross over the US border, without being subject to having to unload, reload, switch companies, etc. (which previously had to be done by the trucks). This program, over the 2 years it was in function, saved Mexican trucking companies A LOT of time, and therefore money, and therefore also saved money for US consumers that were buying the products being brought across the border.

Anyways, the recently passed Omnibus Bill ended this Demonstration Program, forcing Mexican truckers back to the “old ways”…for obvious reasons this was not a very popular decision, especially amongst Mexican truckers. Also, one of the sections of NAFTA called for open borders for truckers by 2000; seeing as it is 2009, and things are now going in reverse, this is not really in accordance to what was put forth in NAFTA.

Bottom line, this week Mexico introduced import tariffs on 90 US goods as a means of trade retribution for the cancellation of the Demonstration Program. This is kind of a big deal. I don’t really know how else to put it. Once this list was put out and I was able to see the goods, my supervisor let me know that a bunch of the stats that we were doing at the very start of my internship (when I was still on the fence about whether I made the right internship placement choice or not), were actually used byMexican officials when they were deciding which goods to place tariffs on. This is also kind of a big deal, and I’m feeling pretty good about myself and my internship, if I may say so.

I’m not sure what’s gonna happen next, but I do know that Obama has told Congress to draft up a new program that will work for both countries. I personally don’t understand the problem with the old one…especially seeing the main argument brought up by Congress in a hearing I watched online yesterday was the safety issues involved. I understand that safety is extremely important, but no serious issues occurred during the program, AND the inspections on Mexican trucks were completed in Mexico by US inspectors…soooooo, I’m not really understanding the whole argument. Plus,if you look at the standards required by Canadian trucks vs. those required by Mexican trucks, the Mexican trucks have to comply with so much more, its crazy.

Anyways, I really hope this whole trade retribution tariff thing leads to some action by the US government…if not, then over the long run I don’t think it will be good for Mexico either because obviously the price of the goods tariffed will rise. It seems to be a lose-lose situation over the long run so I hope something will happen, and I really hope that something will happen while I’m still here in DC because it’s definitely cool to be here, and interning at the Embassy of Mexico with this type of stuff happening.

Moral of the blog posting, for those of you thinking of coming to DC, and have actually read this far, you never know what might happen at your internship. At the beginning, I was definitely not feeling overly thrilled about my placement, but over time I have come to love it…especially this week after realizing that my work is important, really important. If Iwas still in Canada right now I probably would have heard a quick blurb about tariffs on the news, and nothing more. By being in DC I have become extremely interested in the whole issue, and have the chance to learn and experience more than I ever thought would be possible. Hopefully that doesn’t sound too cheesy; I hate cheesy.

As always, paz!

Time for a Recap

Now that I’ve recovered from my Obama experience, I guess its time for an update on everything else that’s been going down here in DC. I’m currently just enjoying the end of my very first ridiculously lazy weekend while being here. I’m not gonna lie, it feels good. I think I’ve finally reached the point of not feeling guilty by taking a day completely off…there is just so much to see and do here that any day I don’t take advantage of seems to be almost a disgrace. But not anymore folks, I am announcing my complete waste of a Sunday with pride! WOOOO!! Plus, I’ve been sick these last two days so the large amount of ingested Nyquil has also made it a little difficult to conduct any public appearances.

Anyways, there have been quite a few interesting things happening this last little while, for example the TWC International Festival. It included a table from pretty much every country that has students participating in TWC (Chile, Venezuela, Mexico, China, South Korea, etc). Of course, Andrew (one of the other Canadians interning here) and I represented Canada quite well, if I may say so. We even had those delicious maple flavored cookies, and made passerbys play quarter hockey. Good times. We also had to make a presentation about our country, so we kept it short and sweet by showcasing our bilingual packaging. Sounds pretty lame I know, but trust me, it was funny…we thought it was anyways. Also, there was FREE FOOD from all over the world, and it was on a Friday night so a bunch of us were able to continue our international-ness afterwards at a Chilean friends’ apartment – and by international-ness I’m pretty much referring to Chilean wine and salsa dancing.

Andrew and I just chillin' with our maple cookies at the Canada table

Also last weekend was my brother and friend’s last night visiting. Conveniently it happened to be the day that two other friends came into town from South Carolina for their spring break. We were all able to have a really awesome dinner at their parents’ house on the Navy Base….followed by some Trivial Pursuit and pub-hopping. It was a great night, and I was able to send off my brother and Jason the next day knowing they had a good time.

One of the most random things I’ve done in the last little while was join my friends and their parents on a day trip out to West Virginia. We ended up at the Charlestown Horse Races…not exactly an event I had pictured while planning my trip to DC, but so awesome. Driving through West Virginia was pretty weird, I’m not gonna lie. Some of the conditions the people were living in were not cool. The landscape was amazing, though, with the mountains and forest…I would love to drive through the area in the fall when the leaves are changing.

I didn’t win much at the races, not that I expected to; but I did think I was pretty clever by buying my bets in quarters, and then when I won I would get it back in dollar bills (plus the extra average 40 cents that I won). Pretty much I used the betting as kind of a reverse change machine, which completely bit me in the ass the next day when I went to do laundry, and had to make an hour trek around Bethesda trying to work up enough quarters for the machine. Charlestown Races definitely got the last laugh.

With my South Carolina peeps, Frank & Eric, at the CharlestownRaces (with our winning bets, of course)

Last Monday we had several different speakers with TWC. One of them was from the Woodrow Wilson Centre and discussed globalization. I really enjoyed his talk and he left a lot of time for questions, so I was able to get some in, which is always a plus. We also had another Presidential Lecture Series in the afternoon at the Department of the Interior. This one was about the Iraq war and US strategies. Compared to the first lecture we had a few weeks ago about China-US Relations, I preferred this one. I’m not gonna lie though, depending on your interests, it seems like you can get a whole lot out of these lectures, or very little. I’m feeling on the very little end at this point seeing as pretty much all of my interest and knowledge lies in Latin American/Western Hemisphere issues, which have yet to be addressed. I honestly don’t even feel like I have enough base knowledge about China or Iraq to deserve such a lecture from super important people who are masters on the issues. I’m hoping the third and final Presidential Lecture will be a bit more towards my interests.

My class and internship this past week both went really well. We are starting to prepare for our midterm, which will be next Monday; it will bean oral exam, which I’ve never had before so I’m hoping it will be alright. All week at my internship I worked on an article for the NAFTAWorks newsletter that is put out monthly by my department. The article is on air cargo/logistics in Mexico and how currently there are many improvements being done. Sounds a little boring upon first hearing about it (which is also what I thought), but after researching and learning more about it, it is actually very interesting. This seems to be the theme with my assignments at the NAFTA desk…not all of them, but many of them sound very daunting at the start, and by the end very interesting. I find myself still keeping up to date on my own time on issues that I was working on at the beginning of the semester. I emailed my article to my supervisor on Friday before leaving work, so I’m hoping that on Tuesday I can get some good reviews back from him.

I was able to spend a lot of time with my friends visiting from South Carolina all week, and we had some pretty good adventures. We went to RiRa (my favorite pub in Bethesda) on Tuesday night for quiz night, which was pretty intense. There were about 8 rounds of pretty tough questions…and we didn’t come out as winners. My roommate and I have decided to make it a regular outing so we’re gonna brush up on the Jeopardy and random facts to reach our goal of winning before I leave.

We also went to a Washington Wizards game on Friday night. The tickets were only $11 (on sale as an “Economic Stimulus Package” which I thought was kind of funny), and the stadium was definitely not as full as it is, for example, at a Calgary Flames game, so we were able to move down closer (to at least the $20 seats). The Wizards didn’t win, but they were only down by two at one point which I guess is kind of a big deal when playing the Magic…so it got a little rowdy for a while. My favorite part was the mascot “G-Whiz”. I thought it was clever. I also enjoyed the three of us doing the robot in an attempt to make it on the jumbotron, but alas, it just wasn’t our time to shine.

Now I’m back to the regular “no visitors” mode for a while, so I’m gonna try to hit up a few more conferences and catch up on some reading. There is one on Tuesday I’m planning on attending about Guantanamo Bay detainees. Should be interesting. I don’t have much else planned for the week, so I have no promises that my next blog will be compelling…but that also means it won’t be so long.

For those of you who powered through and read this entire thing…I salute you.

Paz amigos!

Guess Who Saw Obama?

I don’t like to drag things out, so no more beating around the bush…..it was me who saw Obama. WOOO! AND, I shook his hand. AND I believe my exact words to him were “Obama you’re the man!” I’m not even joking. I have photos for proof…

WAHOO!

So happy I'm taller than 5 feet or this would not have been possible

We touched his hand!!! Never washing it again!!! But don't worry, I have.

Oh ya one more thing, there is NO zoom on those. It was definitely the highlight of my DC trip so far, and I have a feeling it might be the highlight of the WHOLE trip. It was amazing. I called my parents, sister, friends from home, and even my Gramma. Good times with Obama.

I guess I could explain how this all happened. One of the other interns at TWC is working at the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, which puts on a Legislative Conference every year. Bush attended for the past three years (I think three anyways), and we found out just a few days before this year’s that Obama was coming! The intern was able to convince her bosses to let students in for free, and she pretty much was the sweet connection that the rest of us had. She had the inside scoop of Obama’s speech time…but it all ended up being really intense. At first we were told we could attend his speech, and then we were told no because it would be too full, and then at 930 am (as I was literally turning on my computer at the embassy), the other intern calls me and says “he’s speaking at 945 and you can come! HURRY!!” So, basically, Joe (another intern at the embassy) and I were running down Pennsylvania Avenue to get there and….here’s the best part….literally one block over we could see Obama’s convoy driving. It was pretty much like we were racing them and it was really funny; but we were so focused on getting there we couldn’t even laugh at ourselves. We ran into the hotel and they were already taking down the metal detectors because everyone was already seated, but thankfully they checked us really quickly and we snuck in the last door right before the guy came on to introduce him. SO intense I can’t even believe it happened. I really didn’t even catch the first part of his speech because I was so starstruck, but what I did catch was great. He was talking about education and his plan for the US. He even threw in a few jokes (that were actually funny) and spent so much time shaking everyone’s hands. It was a once in a lifetime experience I have no doubt, and a DC moment I definitely will NOT be forgetting.

We also got to attend the rest of the conference, which included sessions on the environment, immigration, education, and health care. Because it was put on by the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, all of the sessions were geared toward Hispanic business leaders, but were relevant for everyone. There were a lot of things discussed, the most interesting I found to be was the immigration session focused on the Employment Verification program. It’s basically this system, kind of like a debit card, where employees have a card that is used by employers to see if they are eligible to work. It sounds like a good system, in theory, but there are so many mistakes in the databases used that the problems are endless.One of the speakers was a US citizen who got a job with the House of Representatives, and couldn’t get cleared because of her card due to a mistake in the database. She had such a terrible time getting papers completed and going through the process, even with all the resources she had literally right at her fingertips at the House. Basically, if you compare this to what a legal immigrant worker would have to go through due to a mistake, it would be amazingly difficult and such a process. Anyways, bottom line, even though I know the speakers were obviously leaning to one side of the argument, I agree and think its not a good idea. I’m gonna keep looking into it though because it’s a really interesting topic….could be just me though, not sure.

Also for the conference another intern and I were able to sit in on a lobbying meeting in a Senator’s office. It was with two Hispanic businessmen from Michigan and a legislative aide to their senator, Senator Levin. We just kind of sat there and observed how the lobbying process works as the businessmen discussed with the aide the things they are worried about in Michigan, and what they think should be done. Lots of it was focused on the failing auto industry and its effects on the smaller suppliers, and all smaller businesses in the area (Hispanic and not). It was really interesting, and they had some great ideas. Also, it was in the Russell Senate building which was beautiful!

There’s been a lot of other stuff going on lately, but I really just wanted to get my OBAMA story out there. It was just THAT amazing! I’ll update on the rest of the happenings soon…..so until then,

Paz!

Chillaxin' in DC

I really don’t even know where to start. It’s been a while so I’ve got some backtracking to do….hmmm….let’s see. Last week was pretty interesting, and really busy. I had something going on every night, including a visit to the “World MBA Tour,” a bunch of super good business schools soliciting themselves. I’m not gonna lie, I really don’t even know if I want to get an MBA in the future, but going definitely didn’t hurt. I felt a little out of my league considering most people there were a bit older with about 5 years of experience under their belts and some clear(er) goals than little ol’ me, but it was still pretty cool. By the time I got around to the last school’s booth I was exaggerating a little and telling them I had 2 years of work experience. Sad I know, but seriously, being honest was awkward seeing as I don’t even have my undergraduate yet. Hopefully none of them read this blog…if they do, my bad. Anyways, I got some really good info, and met some admissions directors for some pretty cool schools. Lots of them were awesome and gave me their business cards and told me to email them when I was ready to apply. Who knows what may happen…

I also helped out the Greater Washington Hispanic Chamber of Commerce at a mixer they had for their members. I sat at the registration with another girl and signed people in, which meant I pretty much got to meet everyone. There were some really great people, all from completely different backgrounds and fields. Oh, and it was catered by the best food I’ve had since I’ve been here, El Tamarindo. Make a note of it, because honestly, it’s a jem. They even had Pupusas…and for those of you that haven’t them, you’re missing out. Anyways, it was held in the upstairs of the PNC bank, which is literally right across from the Treasury building. The view was amazing, and it was a beautiful building. It’s the one where Pelican Brief was filmed (good ol’ Julia Roberts).

Last week I started up my civic engagement at the HI hostel. My first orientation was tagging along on a Georgetown tour which was great. We saw an apartment building where JFK used to live (very cool), Georgetown University (beautiful), and the stairs from The Exorcist (creepy). I finished my training up this week by helping out a pizza night. It was super easy, and a lot of fun. I’ve already met a ton of cool people by helping out, so I have no doubt it will continue to be a good time. I think the first event that I actually run myself will be sometime this coming week or the following.

My internship is still going really good. A few days ago I had a VERY long day, and spent the entire time in the office translating Mexican customs law for an American business man wanting to open a Maquiladora in Mexico. It was really hard work, and very time/mind consuming, but I definitely learned a lot. I also had some authentic Mexican food at the embassy yesterday…every week a Mexican lady comes in with a different menu just for the embassy staff. It was amazing!

We had programming with TWC again this past Monday, but our morning was cancelled due to a “MEGAstorm.” Seriously, on the news they called it a megastorm. Being from Calgary I found this really funny considering it was only an inch or two of snow, and about -15 celcius (at the coldest). If that was a snow day in Calgary, the whole city would be shut down for 4 months of the year. Of course, it only lasted one day (if that) and then it was all melted, but it was definitely an entertaining day. The afternoon wasn’t cancelled, and TWC held a career bootcamp for the students. It was a good afternoon, and I took in a session about applying for law school, and another about resumes. My class also continued as usual, and as always, was really interesting. We talked specifically about free trade agreements and how they work/what they aim for. Everything seems to tie in perfectly to my internship so I really feel like all the different aspects of the program are helping me understand all the rest (if that makes sense).

Also last week a bunch of the international students at TWC met with some interns/associates of the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee of Foreign Affairs. They pretty much kept it simple and introduced everything very quickly, opening the floor for questions. Everyone asked some really good questions, and we basically got the heads up on the committee’s ranking member’s views on a whole bunch of subjects. Some of the most talked about were the Merida Initiative, and the drug war in Mexico. One of the other Canadian students asked them specifically about their discussions on Canada….the answer was very honest with the guy telling us that Canada has pretty much been on the backburner for the last few years, but they are making an effort to give us a little more attention. I’m not gonna lie, it stings that they seem to forget about us, but at the same time, I definitely understand that there are some pretty important issues that need immediate attention happening elsewhere in the hemisphere. Also, I really appreciate the blunt answer, which is pretty hard (if not impossible) to find here in DC. People tend to beat around the bush and keep everything politically correct. Come on people, this is why things are so difficult to accomplish.

Enjoying the White House with my brother Cliff and amigo Jason

Surprisingly we got this in just one shot...impressive I know

My brother and friend came in for a visit last Saturday and have been staying with me all week. There’s been a few (actually many) happy hours involved, and its been a great time. Tomorrow some friends from South Carolina arrive for their spring break so that should be entertaining as well. It seems as though a lot of people are taking up an interest in coming to visit, and I don’t blame them because DC continues to amaze me with its awesomeness.

Paz