泛太平洋协议的争斗

常说泛太平洋贸易协议（也叫跨太平洋经济伙伴协议，TPP，Trans-Pacific Partnership）才是美国的杀手锏，今年年初，都说今年通过胜算大：

路透社
2014.12.11Pacific trade pact chances 'significantly' better than 50-50: Obama
2015.02.26White House sees China as trump card in trade debate

今天美国国会两党达成共识（就是谈妥了，法律还没正式通过），要给总统“快速审批”条件（Fast-Track Authority），不是总统签订贸易协议不需国会批准，而是国会只能说批准或不批准，不能修正。这大大简化审批过程，为最后批准打下基础。

纽约时报：Deal Reached on Fast-Track Authority for Obama on Trade Accord
国家杂志：Senate Trade Deal a Rare Opportunity for Obama

可以说，美国国内的机会成熟了，是两党的共识。难免不觉得最近亚投行事件对此推了一把。

目前泛太平洋贸易协议谈判进展缓慢，但是有进展，除了菲律宾说退出外（菲律宾也没说不参加了，只是本届政府不了），其它还在谈着。

不过“两党的共识”，是两党骨干的共识，不是所有人都有次共识。任何协议，国内国外有输有赢，赢的自然挺，输的，尤其是穷人，不可能不闹。

民主党左派代表，麻省参议院华伦（Elizabeth Warren）就不让，奥巴马赶快安抚：

英国卫报：Obama urges Democrats to back new trade bill and 'support more American jobs'

华伦很顽强，不会让步，她代表的穷人受害最大，她不能坐视不管。当然最后美国各种势力会把她扼杀了的，钱啊钱。

我相信泛太平洋贸易协议除了美国外，对大家都不利，会把各国变成美国的奴隶，原因是此合约贸易法和各种法律（环境、劳工等）、知识产权为主，都是美国的核心强项，远远胜过他人，你要是签了合约，无异带上枷锁，遗憾的是大家都意识不到。

就目前中国和各国、地区签订的自贸协议来看，泛太平洋贸易协议对中国有影响，但远远不是美国想象的那程度。白费劲了。

参见：
中日韩第七轮自贸协定工作谈判13日在首尔启动
中国-东盟关系


2015.04.16
Democrats’ civil war over free trade
The open in-fighting ramped up after a breakthrough on the historic bill was announced.
Adam Behsudi

The most important trade bill in a decade has pitted Harry Reid against President Barack Obama. Liberal Democrat Rosa DeLauro against moderate Democrat Ron Kind. Labor unions against pro-business Democrats. And Elizabeth Warren against virtually everyone who supports a landmark piece of legislation that would allow the president to close what could be the biggest free-trade deal in history.

The open warring among Democrats over fast-track trade legislation, and the party’s broader existential crisis on free trade, grew more pronounced Thursday as senior lawmakers announced a breakthrough on the trade bill. Many Democrats still feel the burn, 20 years later, of lost manufacturing jobs from the North American Free Trade Agreement — pushed through by former President Bill Clinton — and they fear another Democratic president is on the verge of turning his back on working-class Americans by negotiating a trade deal that would send jobs overseas.



What’s at stake substantively is giving the president streamlined authority to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-country free-trade deal that would dwarf NAFTA. But there’s also much more at stake politically for a Democratic Party whose progressive wing is enjoying an upswing thanks to the aggressive populism of Warren and liberals like Sen. Bernie Sanders, who are unabashedly anti-free trade deal. Obama wants to cement a legacy on global free trade, but his work negotiating with Republicans has created several factions within the Democratic Party.

Take Kind and DeLauro. Both Democrats come to the fast-track debate from opposite sides.

Kind, a Wisconsin lawmaker who joined the trade-friendly New Democrat Coalition, has provided solid support for the White House, boosting its message that the so-called TPP, which includes enhanced labor and environment protections, isn’t reminiscent of the trade policy of years past.

DeLauro, from Connecticut, has been a central figure in the fight against the bill, forming a powerful progressive coalition of labor, environment, social justice and religious groups that argue any improvements are window dressing at best.

“The single biggest economic issue facing American families is that jobs do not pay enough to live on,” she said following the Trade Promotion Authority bill’s introduction on Thursday. “Fast tracking the TPP would make it easier for corporations to offshore Americans jobs and force our workers to compete with those in Vietnam making less than 60 cents an hour.”

While the New Dems on Thursday said they were still studying the legislation, they were encouraged by the inclusion of provisions to protect workers and renew trade preference programs. Kind has yet to issue a formal statement, but in January the Wisconsin lawmaker talked favorably about fast track.

“You can complain about [the fast track bill] all you want, but if you allow a Republican Congress to amend and change [future trade deals] you’re going to end up in a worse position than what you started with,” Kind said. “It doesn’t make sense for a Democratic member to oppose it.”

The internal Democratic wars are spilling into the presidential campaign as well, putting Hillary Clinton on the spot.

Clinton has been reluctant to show her hand on the pending trade legislation, although she voiced support for the massive Asia-Pacific pact that the administration is negotiating while serving as Obama’s secretary of state. When running against Obama for president in 2008, she instead said the U.S. needed to take a "timeout" on trade.

Other potential Democratic candidates, including former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, have assumed the progressive populist mantle and are already positioning themselves to Clinton’s left by preemptively coming out against the TPP.

Unlike Clinton, Warren has been unequivocal in her opposition to fast-track authority and the Asia trade deal, and that's one of the reasons some anti-trade liberals keep pushing her to get in the presidential race, though she continues to say she is not interested.

Warren declared herself all in on the battle against fast track and the TPP deal at a rally on Wednesday.

“We’re here today to fight,” the Massachusetts Democrat said, whipping up a crowd of about 1,200 people in a park facing the Capitol Building. “We are here to fight. Are you ready to fight?”

Most other Democrats in Congress, too, are skeptical of Obama’s free-trade agenda and are expected to vote against the trade promotion authority legislation, which will fast track trade deals through Congress by limiting amendments and subjecting the agreements to up-or-down votes.

The trade promotion authority bill introduced Thursday puts Obama and others who support the measure where they were a little more than a year ago when Reid stopped the legislation dead in its tracks. The Senate Democratic leader has never liked the legislation, voting against it in 1997 and 2002. This time, however, the GOP controls the Senate.

Past trade deals “haven’t always lived up to their promise,” Obama said in a statement issued Thursday, echoing a comment he made in his State of the Union address. But he asserted that he would only sign his name to an agreement that “helps ordinary Americans get ahead.”

“The bill put forward today would help us write those rules in a way that avoids the mistakes from our past, seize opportunities for our future, and stay true to our values,” Obama said.

In the Senate, where Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, wants a vote by late April, the fast track trade bill will need six Democrats to support it to get to the 60-vote filibuster-breaking threshold.

However, at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on Thursday, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) protested plans to rush to a vote.

“Not fair and not adequate on such an important issue,” the Senate’s third-ranking Democrat told Chairman Orrin Hatch. “Not fair. Not fair. And you are a fair-minded man.”

In the House, Republicans want a vote before the current legislative session breaks for the Memorial Day recess, Rep. Pat Tiberi, an Ohio Republican, said Thursday. The tally is expected to be close.

As few as 10 House Democrats, primarily from the ranks of the business-friendly New Democrat Coalition, are firmly committed to supporting the legislation. The measure needs 218 votes to pass in the lower chamber, which means getting the yeas of anywhere from 10 to 50 Democrats, depending on how many of the 247 Republicans in the House vote against the trade bill. Estimates of Republican defections vary widely from two dozen to as many as 60.

“What I can tell you, which is good news, is a lot of members are feeling the heat,” Sanders said Wednesday night to constituents belonging to the liberal group Democracy for America.

“Whether we can beat it in the Senate or not, I don’t know. I think we have a better shot frankly in the House where to the best of my knowledge the overwhelming majority of Democrats are against it,” the Vermont independent said.

“We don’t know how many tea party Republicans will not want to give the president this authority,” said Rep. Tim Ryan, an Ohio Democrat. “You see on some of the negotiations with Iran, they want a heavy amount of oversight they want to watch every move that he makes … if that same group applies that same standard to this trade agreement there may be some backlash with us in the House not having the ability to amend it.”

Ryan, who represents a manufacturing-heavy district in the state’s northeast, is among those vocally opposing the bill. But he said there are still a lot of maybes out there in the caucus.

“They’ve been fairly quiet and I think they want to see how it plays out with fast track and they obviously want to see the agreement too,” he said. “There’s a lot of unknowns out there for a Democrat to get out in front and say I’m definitely voting for this.”

Despite an impressive coalition aimed at defeating the deal, the number of Democrats who support the bill could grow depending on the position of leadership. But so far, there is little indication that Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi or Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer will support the legislation.

Pelosi has offered a consistent message that Democrats want a “path to yes.” She has even organized a series of briefings on the Asia-Pacific trade deal to help members be able to make a more educated decision, but — based on her past record — she is not expected to support a fast-track bill.

Hoyer, who has been supportive of past trade deals, struck an unusually cautious tone about the legislation when asked about it earlier this week.

“It’s very controversial over here as you well know,” he said.

Hoyer supported a fast-track trade bill last year, putting him at odds with Pelosi.

The top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Sander Levin, has come out against the bill. Levin has pushed for Congress to resolve outstanding issues in the Asia-Pacific pact before voting to give the president negotiating authority.

The fast-track compromise “gives up Congressional leverage at the exact wrong time,” the Michigan lawmaker said in a statement. “Instead of pressing USTR to get a better agreement or signaling to our negotiating partners that Congress will only accept a strong agreement, the Hatch-Wyden-Ryan TPA puts Congress in the back seat and greases the skids for an up-or-down vote after the fact.”



【附录】
金融时报中文网
切勿用TPP制衡中国
美国外交关系委员会地缘经济研究中心主任 迈克尔•列维 为英国《金融时报》撰稿 2015-04-15

在美国国内兜售自由贸易协定是项艰难的工作，因为公众对这类协定对美国就业的影响持怀疑态度。因此，《跨太平洋伙伴关系》（Trans-Pacific Partnership，简称TPP）协定的拥趸们在努力赢取支持者时，日益强调达成协定带来的地缘政治好处。

这些人看法的正确之处在于，好的贸易与投资协定的确会带来地缘政治上的好处，谈判破裂的确会产生严重破坏。但他们往往夸大这个因素的重要性——而且，这种夸大其实也会催生切实的地缘政治风险，危及他们想要达成的协定。

TPP的地缘政治好处显而易见。它可帮助美国的亚洲盟国（特别是日本）进行改革，由此加强它们的经济，使它们成为更具实力的地缘政治伙伴。参与TPP的亚洲国家可使它们的经济关系变得更加多元，减少对难以捉摸的中国的依赖。如果该协定真的能为中国提供一个最终加入进来的选择，那么它还有助于把中国拉上一条更加自由化的发展道路。

相反，如果美国国内的争吵导致TPP谈判破裂，会让所谓美国机能紊乱的说法变得更有市场，大幅加大美国领导世界的难度，还会让中国更容易推进它那些将美国排除在外的贸易安排。

但是，以强调“地缘政治”的方式兜售TPP，也伴随着严重的风险。如果美国不小心行事，中国可能会将该协定视为一个从经济上遏制中国的企图。达成一项加强美国与盟友经济关系、同时鼓励中国在推行一系列合理经济改革后也加入其中（与中国加入世贸组织(WTO)的过程大致相同）的协定是一回事，以对抗性方式搞出一项协定、以此来制衡中国（即从经济上遏制中国，与从军事上遏制中国的战略相对应）则是另一回事。

面对这种前景，北京方面很可能会断定，维系一个开放、和平、基于规则的国际经济秩序（他们从这个秩序中受益匪浅），给他们带来的好处要比他们之前所认为的少得多。从历史角度看，形成这种认识的主要大国，往往会转而诉诸特殊的外交或军事安排来寻求经济安全，给国际安全带来灾难性后果。（上世纪30年代的日本侵略虽然受到多种因素推动，但日本担心被隔绝在全球经济体系之外无疑是影响因素之一。）

美国的亚洲盟国（更不用提加拿大和拉美了）也不想参与到与中国的直接对抗中。如果美国的伙伴对这种不受欢迎的联合感到厌烦，将削弱华盛顿方面在该地区打造的联盟以及美国的地缘政治地位。除此之外，美国越向亚洲伙伴表示TPP是关于地缘政治，协定未达成造成的地缘政治危害就越大。

过多谈论地缘政治也会在美国国内带来风险。TPP的倡导者之所以改用这种战术，部分原因在于单纯从经济好处角度来兜售该协定难度太大。

但是，强调地缘政治的做法可能会让一些骑墙派更加持怀疑态度。冷战期间，美国经常加入不平衡的贸易协定，认为帮助盟友的经济比加强自身经济更重要。如今，美国人感觉更加脆弱，也不像以前那样信任经济一体化。现在的当务之急是，打造一个从经济好处角度讲站得住脚、而地缘政治红利只算额外好处的TPP。

美国需要以公开言论或至少是台面下的外交来阐明一点：TPP并不是为了分裂亚洲。这将有助于确保达成的任何协定都不仅是地缘政治上的成功，也是经济上的成功。

本文作者是美国外交关系委员会(Council on Foreign Relations)莫里斯•格林伯格地缘经济研究中心(Maurice R Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies)主任