PBS高端访谈:美加墨贸易协定带来的影响（在线收听）

AMNA NAWAZ: And now back to our lead story, the new trade pact between the U.S. Canada and Mexico. To help us better understand what's in the deal and its potential effects for the U.S. economy, we're joined by Edward Alden, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he specializes in the U.S. economic competitiveness and trade. He's also author of Failure to Adjust. How Americans Got Left Behind in the Global Economy. Welcome to the NewsHour.

EDWARD ALDEN, Council on Foreign Relations: Great to be with you, Amna.

AMNA NAWAZ: So, let me just start off with this understanding. Obviously, the president has a priority of rewriting big trade deals. He came in with that mission. Big picture, how is this new deal different from the old one?

EDWARD ALDEN: Well, it's probably not radically different from the old deal. I mean, the best news is, it's still in place. We have still got this North American supply chain from the U.S. and Canada and Mexico still intact. There are some changes that I think are significant, particularly the rules about how cars have to be made. There's some additional opening. If you try to sell milk into Canada, the deal is a little bit better. There are provisions to try to keep countries from devaluing their currencies to gain competitive advantage. There are some important tweaks. And I think the president has some right to trumpet what he's done. But it's not a wholesale change from NAFTA as it exists. There are really modest changes on the whole.

AMNA NAWAZ: So I want to go into some of those specifics in a moment. But just again, we heard the president, you mentioned, hailing this. He tweeted about it this morning. And he wrote that this is a great deal for all three countries, that it solves the many deficiencies and mistakes of NAFTA, greatly opens markets to our farmers and manufacturers, reduces trade barriers to the, he says will bring our three great nations together. On this fixing part specifically, what do you think this deal fixed that needed fixing?

EDWARD ALDEN: Yes, you knew, whatever Trump came back with, he was going to say it was the greatest deal ever negotiated. But to sort of zero in, I think the biggest thing that has needed fixing is the stubbornly low wages in Mexico. When NAFTA was negotiated, when Bill Clinton got it through the Congress, the promise was, look, this is going to raise Mexican living standards, their wages are going to go up, they're going to buy more American goods. By and large, that didn't happen. Wages in Mexico are actually lower relative to U.S. wages now than they were two decades ago. So what they have tried to do in this deal was sort of force wages up by fiat, saying more of the content in cars has to be made by high-wage workers. Mexican labor standards have to be tougher in order to allow unions to organize, some effort to really go after a problem that, interestingly, Democrats and the labor left have been complaining about for years. They have been Trump's real audience in this renegotiation. He's kind of trying to bring organized labor on board, which is sort of ironic for a Republican president.

AMNA NAWAZ: Those specific changes in the auto industry, though, do those help the U.S. too? Does that mean higher wages or more jobs or different car prices?

EDWARD ALDEN: That's, he's promising that it will create more jobs and higher wages in the United States. We will have to see. I mean, the auto industry is complicated. It could play out in a lot of different ways. If it does lead to higher wages, it'll probably knock up car prices a little bit, but the effects will be fairly small. So we don't really know. But that's the promise that the president's made, that this is going to bring jobs back to United States in the auto industry, and it's going to lift wages for auto workers.

AMNA NAWAZ: You mentioned dairy farmers, the movement of milk from the United States to Canada.

EDWARD ALDEN: Yes. Yes.

AMNA NAWAZ: This will open up that market, right, greater access to the Canadian market. What kind of impact is that going to have here?

EDWARD ALDEN: I mean, it'll help in places like Wisconsin and Vermont, where they have complained a long time that they can't sell their milk products into Canada. It's pretty small. Canada has a very protected dairy sector, and the industry's politically powerful, particularly in Quebec. Quebec is having a provincial election today. Prime Minister Trudeau in Canada needs support from Quebec to be reelected when he has to go to the polls next year. But it's a bigger opening than the Canadians have never, have ever made before. And the president promised in this negotiation he was going to do something about it, and he has.

AMNA NAWAZ: So the president's been hailing these big wins, right? What do you see when you look at the overall deal that the U.S. had to give up to negotiate some of those wins?

EDWARD ALDEN: Well, I mean, one of the interesting things is, it didn't actually have to give up a lot. It made a bunch of concessions from the president's opening positions. I mean, he had called for a much more radical rewriting of the auto rules. He wanted a sunset clause, where the deal would automatically have to be renegotiated every five years. There were a bunch of things that the administration backed away from, but Canada and Mexico, by and large, didn't get a whole lot of new things they wanted in the agreement. What they got is, the agreement survives, and their access to the huge U.S. market remains intact. That's what they wanted at the end of the day.

AMNA NAWAZ: I got to ask you about the way in which this deal came through too. It was a long negotiation, about a little over a year. It got really tough in terms of the public talk sometimes. What does that say about setting precedent for future deals and other countries?

EDWARD ALDEN: I mean, I think this is the bigger problem here. Trade negotiations have for decades now been conducted in a fairly collegial way. That doesn't mean that were not hard tradeoffs. But countries tried to create a win-win. The president went into this one and create a win-lose. This deal was going to be better for the United States, and worse for Canada and Mexico. That cannot be a good thing long-term for our relations with those countries. And it sends a tough message to the rest of the world, particularly China, where the United States faces a series of big trade problems and negotiations really haven't started in earnest yet.

AMNA NAWAZ: Very quickly, less than 30 seconds. Now, is there a way to look at this and say, OK, the U.S. is better off with this new deal than it was with the old one?

EDWARD ALDEN: With these things, I don't think we're going to know for some years. I think there's some possibility, I think, of rebuilding some support across party lines. Democrats and Republicans have been so divided on this. There's some things here the Democrats will like. But we're at the very early stages of what I think is going to be a long process of trying to shift U.S. trade relations with the world.

AMNA NAWAZ: Still too early to see then. We will follow it. Edward Alden, thanks for being here.

EDWARD ALDEN: Good to be with you. Thanks, Amna.

阿姆纳·纳瓦兹：欢迎收听PBS的头条新闻，今天我们关注的是美国、加拿大、墨西哥三国最新签订的贸易协定。为了帮助大家更好地理解这次协定是什么以及该协定对美国经济的潜在影响有什么，我们请来了爱德华·奥尔登，他是外交关系委员会的高级研究员，擅长领域是美国经济竞争力及贸易问题。此外，他还曾写过《失调：美国人为何在全球经济中落于下风》这本书。欢迎您来到我们的《新闻一小时》。

爱德华·奥尔登，外交关系委员会：阿姆纳，很高兴见到您。

阿姆纳·纳瓦兹：我们先来了解一下这件事的情况吧。目前显然是特朗普总统要优先考虑重新撰写重大贸易协定的问题。他肩上是承担着这项使命的。这是一次大布局。那么这一次协定跟上一次协定有什么区别吗？

爱德华·奥尔登：其实区别很可能不是很大。好消息是：旧协定尚未废除。美国、加拿大、墨西哥的北美供应链还依然有效。在我看来，有一些变动是比较大的，尤其是关于汽车生产方式的规定。开头部分还有一些额外的要求，根据这些要求，如果向加拿大出口牛奶的话，就比较合算。还有一些条款是限制某些国家试图通过货币贬值的方式来增加竞争优势的。还有一些重要的微调。我觉得，特朗普总统有一些权力，可以宣传自己做过的一些事情。但跟《北美自由贸易协定》相比，差别并不是翻天覆地的。总体而言，都是一些再细微不过的变化。

阿姆纳·纳瓦兹：那么，我想跟您聊聊一些细节的变化。不过，刚才您也提到，特朗普总统有宣传过这件事，他今早还就这件事发了推文。他写道，该协定对于3个国家来说都是重要的协定，删除了《北美自由贸易协定》中的许多缺陷和错误，为农民和制造商开放了市场，减少了贸易壁垒。特朗普认为此举会将3个国家联系的更为紧密。那提到解决问题这件事，您觉得该协定解决了哪些早就应该解决的问题呢？

爱德华·奥尔登：确实有解决一些痼疾。无论特朗普达成了什么优势，在面对国人的时候，他都会说这是史上最好的协定。但如果我们仔细研究该协定，我觉得最需要解决的问题是墨西哥的低薪情况。当初协商《北美自由贸易协定》的时候，比尔·克林顿总统在国会申请审批时，他曾承诺说：大家看啊，该协定可以提升墨西哥人的生活水准和工资水平，大家的购买力一定会更强。但总体而言，这个愿景并未实现——墨西哥现在的工资水平与美国相比要比20年前更低。所以他们现在想通过该协议做的是：通过法规的方式来迫使工资上升。声称只有工人们的工资提高了，车的品质才会更高。墨西哥的劳工标准愈发艰难，这都是为了让各联盟能组织活动，为一个问题讨个说法，那就是：民主党和剩下的劳工多年来一直都在抱怨却从未解决低薪的问题。这些人对再次商定贸易协定的事情都非常感兴趣。特朗普似乎要尝试引入隶属工会的工人，而鉴于特朗普是共和党人，所以这种做法就有些自己打脸了。

阿姆纳·纳瓦兹：汽车行业中这些细节上的变化也对美国有利吗？这些变化是否意味着提薪、工作岗位增加或者汽车价格有变呢？

爱德华·奥尔登：没错，特朗普承诺该协定会带来更多的工作岗位、提高大家的薪资。我觉得，这件事还得观望。因为汽车行业很复杂，有很多种玩法。就算能提高工资，那汽车的价格肯定也会有一定的提高，所以影响不大。所以，很难讲。但毕竟特朗普做了这个承诺，他说会增加美国汽车行业的就业岗位，会为汽车行业的工人们提薪。

阿姆纳·纳瓦兹：您提到过奶农，即美国牛奶出口到加拿大的事儿。

爱德华·奥尔登：是的，没错。

阿姆纳·纳瓦兹：此举可以打开加拿大市场，让美国商品更多地进入加拿大。在这方面，会产生什么影响呢？

爱德华·奥尔登：威斯康星州和佛蒙特州都会有所受益，因为很长时间以来，这两个州一直在抱怨其奶制品无法打入加拿大市场的事情。加拿大的奶制品市场很小，地方保护主义严重，政治介入很多，尤其是魁北克省。魁北克今天还举行了省内大选。加拿大现任总理特鲁多需要魁北克的支持，这样他才能在明年的大选中再次当选。但这次堪称加拿大史上最大的一次对外开放了。此外，特朗普总统还在谈判过程中承诺会做些事情，而他确实做了。

阿姆纳·纳瓦兹：所以特朗普一直在彰显这些成就，是吗？您觉得签订这次新协定后，美国会有哪些方面的牺牲呢？

爱德华·奥尔登：有一件事很有意思，那就是：美国几乎不需要做出什么牺牲。特朗普先声夺人，做了一些让步。这种让步就是呼吁对汽车行业的规则进行更大幅度的改写。特朗普希望有“日落”条款，也就是说，该协定每5年要重新商定一次。有很多东西，美国政府都回避了，但加拿大和墨西哥政府总体来说没有得到自己想从协定中获得的东西。他们得到的是：1. 协定得以延续；2. 他们依然能进入广阔的美国市场。这是他们想从协议中获得的东西。

阿姆纳·纳瓦兹：还想请您讲讲该协议是如何敲定的。这次协商的时间很长，超过了1年。在公众看来，是经历了很久的协商期。这次协定在哪些方面能为未来的协定和其他国家树立先例呢？

爱德华·奥尔登：我觉得这是一个比较大的问题。过去几十年来，贸易协商都是以比较学院式的氛围进行的。但这并不意味着就没有艰难的对峙情况。但各国都曾努力创造双赢的情况。而特朗普这次参与的协定并不是共赢的情况。这次的协定对美国更为有利，对加拿大和墨西哥不是很有利。长期来看，这不利于我们三国之间的关系。这也给世界的其他地方，尤其是中国，发出了一个不好的信号，即美国虽然面临着很多重大的贸易问题，但美国从未想真心实意地参与协商。

阿姆纳·纳瓦兹：还想占用您不到30秒的时间：有了这项新协定之后，美国占了多少便宜呢？

爱德华·奥尔登：这个问题，很多年之内都得不到答案。我觉得有可能可以在政党的路线上重建一些支持。民主党和共和党一直都各自为政。不过，关于新协定这件事，民主党对一些内容还是大为赞同的。但美国要转变与世界的贸易关系，这还是万里长征的第一步。

阿姆纳·纳瓦兹：那一天还要很久之后才能看得到。我们会密切关注的。爱德华·奥尔登先生，感谢您参加我们的节目。

爱德华·奥尔登：我也很有幸能来。谢谢您，阿姆纳。