“An educated consumer,” the New York haberdasher Sy Syms used to boast in his television commercials, “is our best customer.” The same is not true of trade pacts. Since the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement 20 years ago, voters have come to understand them better and like them less. True, 54 per cent of Americans see trade as an “opportunity for growth”, according to a recent Gallup poll. But 38 per cent see it as a “threat to the economy”, and they are dug in. Many blame globalisation for the 60,000 plants closed, by some estimates, and the 5m manufacturing jobs lost since Nafta was passed. The White House – negotiating the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the EU and the Trans-Pacific Partnership with 12 nations – finds itself failing on both fronts.
“受過教育的消費者是我們的理想客戶”，紐約男子服飾經銷商Sy Syms曾經在電視廣告中這樣標榜道。這一點對于貿易協議來說并不成立。因為20年前隨著《北美自由貿易協定》(NAFTA)的通過，投票人對于貿易協議的了解程度日漸加深，好感度卻越來越低。蓋洛普(Gallup)近期進行的一項民調顯示，54%的美國人認為貿易是一種“促進增長的機遇”，但有38%的人則認為貿易是一種“對經濟的威脅”，而且他們對此深信不疑。據估計，自《北美自由貿易協定》通過以來，美國共有6萬家工廠關閉，500萬個制造業工作崗位消失，很多人將此歸咎為全球化的影響。目前，白宮一方面在與歐盟就《跨大西洋貿易和投資伙伴關系協定》(TTIP)進行談判，另一方面則在和12個國家商談《跨太平洋戰略經濟伙伴關系協定》(TPP)。但在這兩個方面，白宮取得的進展均不盡人意。
Nafta was oversold 20 years ago. It has generated much economic activity but many of its specific promises proved false. It did not stabilise the US trade balance; instead it led to sizeable trade deficits. It did not produce a Mexican prosperity widespread enough to hold down migration to the US; instead it weakened the rural Mexican economy and drove immigration higher. Other trade deals have brought unpleasant surprises, too. Since a pact with South Korea came into force in 2012, US exports there have fallen and the bilateral trade deficit is up more than 50 per cent. Barack Obama’s trade negotiators boast that their “21st century” agreements will avoid some of Nafta’s economic pitfalls. The problem is that the criticism of those agreements is 21st century as well.
《北美自由貿易協定》所能帶來的益處在20年前被吹噓過頭了。它確實催生了不少經濟活動，但未能兌現很多具體承諾。該協定未能穩定美國的貿易平衡，正相反，它導致了大規模的貿易逆差。該協定不僅未使墨西哥出現覆蓋范圍足夠廣的經濟繁榮，以抑制墨西哥向美國的移民潮，正相反，它使墨西哥的農村經濟更加虛弱，并使移民規模進一步擴大。其它貿易協議也導致了令人不快的意外后果。自從美國與韓國的貿易協定自2012年生效以來，美國對韓出口持續下降，雙邊貿易赤字升幅超過50%。巴拉克•奧巴馬(Barack Obama)的貿易談判代表宣稱，他們所推動的“二十一世紀”新型貿易協定能夠避免《北美自由貿易協定》的某些經濟陷阱。問題在于這些協定所面對的同樣是二十一世紀的新型批評。
Today’s trade deals are more about setting standards and ground rules than about removing tariffs and quotas – which, except for food and clothing, are already quite low in the US. The new pacts get under the skin of the those who distrust global capitalism, just as the old pacts did. But they also provoke unwonted unease among market libertarians. Thus, Lori Wallach of the anti-Nafta group Public Citizen was one of the heroes of the 1999 Seattle street protests against the World Trade Organisation, but her sophisticated, left-leaning arguments against granting “fast-track” authority to today’s US trade negotiators might also convince the constitutional literalists who inhabit the various Tea Party groups.
如今的貿易協議更多是設定標準和基本原則，而非取消關稅和配額——除了食品和服裝之外，美國其它商品的關稅水平已經很低了。新的貿易協定和過往協議一樣，讓那些不信任全球資本主義的人感到不快。但它們在市場自由主義者中間也激起了罕見的不安情緒。因此，洛瑞•沃勒克(Lori Wallach)作為反對《北美自由貿易協定》的“公民組織”(Public Citizen)成員，在1999年西雅圖街頭針對世貿組織(WTO)的抗議活動中成為了英雄。但她世故老練、反對向如今的美國貿易談判代表授予“快速道”(fast-track)權限的左傾言論或許同樣使憲法自由主義者們認定，各種各樣的茶黨(Tea Party)組織究竟是由什么樣的人組成的。
As Ms Wallach said in a recent television appearance, the new-generation pacts are only partly about trade. The main thing such pacts do is to improve the standing of corporations against the governments that would regulate them domestically. So-called “investor-state dispute settlement”, a Nafta innovation, elevates a certain expected regulatory environment to the level of a right. Companies can sue countries before an ad hoc panel over the negative impact of laws passed in their parliaments. (Labour groups and non-governmental organisations cannot.) Under a similar set of arbitration rules the Swedish energy giant Vattenfall is seeking
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