t*******o
发帖数: 1 | 1 Former Mexican president: Mexico and Canada, don’t cave to Trump
By Ernesto Zedillo May 7
Ernesto Zedillo, a professor in the field of international economics and
politics at Yale University, was president of Mexico from 1994 to 2000. He
is also a member of the Berggruen Institute’s 21st Century Council.
Representatives from the United States, Mexico and Canada are meeting in
Washington Monday for continued negotiations over the North American Free
Trade Agreement. A year ago, when Robert Lighthizer, the U.S. trade
representative, notified Congress that the Trump administration aimed to
renegotiate NAFTA, the intent seemed legitimate and benign. But it is clear
by now that this is not the case.
At the time, Lighthizer argued that the 25-year-old agreement did not
reflect the standards warranted by changes in the economy. Provisions on
digital trade, for instance, could not have been adequately incorporated
into NAFTA in the early 1990s. Understandably, Lighthizer argued that
supporting better-paid jobs and faster U.S. economic growth should be the
objective of the modernized NAFTA. It was also alleged that the agreement
needed to be updated on key issues such as intellectual property rights and
labor and environmental provisions.
Had these laudable objectives been the sincere intent of renegotiating the
agreement, no one would have raised an eyebrow. And most likely, the deal
would have been happily concluded by now. From day one, however, there were
grounds to doubt the truthfulness of the administration’s position.
For starters, practically every topic included on the to-do list had already
been addressed in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that was discarded by
the Trump administration. Both Mexico and Canada were parties to the TPP.
If NAFTA had been modernized in practice through the TPP, why call for the
renegotiation of the former while trashing the latter?
Unfortunately, it did not take long to confirm skeptics’ worst fears about
the U.S. government’s intent for a new NAFTA. In mid-July, Lighthizer
published more detailed objectives for the renegotiation that included
wrongheaded arguments. For example, the American negotiators falsely
associated NAFTA with the explosion of U.S. trade deficits, the closure of
thousands of factories and the abandonment of millions of American workers
— as if the steady advance of automation and the 2008 financial crisis didn
’t happen. Let’s be clear: NAFTA caused none of that.
On the contrary, analyses have shown that the agreement helped to make
American companies more competitive in the global market and supported the
creation of millions of jobs in the United States, while benefitting
American consumers. Some 14 million jobs today rely on trade with Canada and
Mexico, while the nearly 200,000 export-related jobs created annually by
the pact pay 15 to 20 percent more on average than the jobs that were lost.
And the integration of supply chains has made it clear that NAFTA saved the
U.S. auto industry from possibly collapsing and taking all those
manufacturing jobs with it.
The objective of getting a new NAFTA that improves the U.S. trade balance
and reduces the trade deficit with Mexico and Canada is also utterly
misplaced. Countries have trade deficits in their balance of payments when
they spend more than they produce. There is little, if anything, that trade
policy can do to fix this type of imbalance. Shrinking the fiscal deficit is
usually what is most effective to fix trade deficits. It is also absurd to
focus on bilateral or sectorial deficits rather than total trade deficits.
Given the fallacious nature of some of the arguments and objectives used by
the U.S. government to pursue a new NAFTA, it should not come as a surprise
how awkward and unpalatable a number of its specific demands at the
negotiating table have proven to be.
Take the demand about a sunset clause, by which the agreement would be up
for termination every five years unless the three governments agree
otherwise. Or consider the one about eliminating the NAFTA provisions that
discourage the abuse of the so-called unfair trade laws by which trade
partners can capriciously impose measures like antidumping duties. These and
other American proposals would undermine the predictability that
international agreements are first and foremost supposed to provide.
Under NAFTA, those within the region export to each other at preferential
rates as long as goods involved comply with the rules of origin requirement
— that is, a certain percentage of the value of the exported good must come
from the region itself. But the U.S. insists on modifying these rules,
largely with the U.S. automotive industry in mind. Not only do U.S.
negotiators want to significantly increase the required level of regional
content, they also, inequitably, want to impose a required level of U.S.
content higher than that of its NAFTA partners. More recently, Lighthizer
proposed a particularly discriminatory regime in which tariffs would be
higher for Mexico because its wages are lower.
Thus, bewilderingly, U.S. negotiators are pushing for a highly convoluted
and discriminatory system while ignoring, or perhaps knowing, that such a
system would not only be bad for Mexico and Canada but also for American
consumers and producers in the U.S. automotive industry. American car makers
would lose competitiveness and shares in world markets, possibly even in
their domestic market, to their European and Asian competitors.
Oddly, U.S. representatives are also asking for changes to make it easier
for them to impose seasonal anti-dumping tariffs on a number of fruits and
vegetables, in order to make imports of these products more expensive at the
convenience of some domestic producers, irrespective of the adverse
consequences for domestic consumers. Furthermore, the United States wants
its NAFTA partners to open government procurement purchases to U.S. firms
but insists on doing the opposite for Canadian and Mexican firms in the
United States.
To make matters worse, U.S. negotiators have further demanded to make the
NAFTA investor-state dispute settlement system optional, so that the United
States can withdraw from it if it so chooses. That would deny such
protection to its own companies, thus discouraging them from investing in
Mexico and Canada.
From these and other grotesque demands, it’s clear that what the U.S.
government seeks is not to modernize the old NAFTA but rather to get an
agreement that would destroy trade and investment among the three North
American partners. It perversely aims to get Mexico and Canada’s seal of
approval to carry out the demolition of the most successful undertaking ever
of mutually beneficial economic cooperation in the Americas.
The Canadian and Mexican governments are to be praised for their serious
efforts so far to preserve the openness of trade and investment provided by
NAFTA. But under no circumstance should they sign on to an agreement that
would do just the opposite.
The international trading system is under serious attack — paradoxically
from its principal builder and beneficiary, the United States. Mexico and
Canada are acting responsibly to protect that system at one of its first
lines of defense, NAFTA itself.
But unless the U.S. government seriously reconsiders its proposed self-
damaging trade policy, its two partners should move forward to protect and
lean on another line of defense — the World Trade Organization multilateral
system — and leave the U.S. government to assume alone full responsibility
for killing NAFTA. | s***c
发帖数: 1926 | 2 说不定今年中日，中加，中墨自由贸易协定都要开始谈判。
clear
【在 t*******o 的大作中提到】
: Former Mexican president: Mexico and Canada, don’t cave to Trump
: By Ernesto Zedillo May 7
: Ernesto Zedillo, a professor in the field of international economics and
: politics at Yale University, was president of Mexico from 1994 to 2000. He
: is also a member of the Berggruen Institute’s 21st Century Council.
: Representatives from the United States, Mexico and Canada are meeting in
: Washington Monday for continued negotiations over the North American Free
: Trade Agreement. A year ago, when Robert Lighthizer, the U.S. trade
: representative, notified Congress that the Trump administration aimed to
: renegotiate NAFTA, the intent seemed legitimate and benign. But it is clear
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