>
Article snippet: RIO GRANDE CITY, Tex. — Caught quite literally in the middle of the international debate over the way the United States trades with its southern neighbor are two Texans named Sam. Sam Vale and Sam Sparks Jr. own two bridges that stretch across the Rio Grande, connecting farmers on either side with markets on the other, and linking communities in South Texas and northern Mexico that sometimes meet in the middle. The majority of border bridges belong to the government. But the Sams are exceptions, private owners of crossings collecting tolls that can exceed $30 per truck. As cross-border truck volume doubled in the last two decades, those tolls have given rise to a pair of multimillion-dollar businesses, a dividend of the traffic ferrying construction materials in both directions, avocados from Mexican fields to American supermarkets, and Midwestern wheat to Mexican breweries. “We used to joke that if you want to own a bridge, you have to be named Sam, Sam or Uncle Sam,” said Mr. Vale, who owns a two-lane crossing in Rio Grande City, a bit more than an hour’s drive from Mr. Sparks’s four-lane roadway. Both men are second-generation bridge owners. But now their unique revenue stream could be in jeopardy. The Trump administration wrapped up a fifth round of wrangling over the North American Free Trade Agreement, or Nafta, this week in Mexico City. President Trump has pursued an aggressive rewrite, pushing to protect American workers and stem the flow of goods from Me... Link to the full article to read more