美国通过贸易谈判立法 亚洲盟友欢迎

HONG KONG — American allies in Asia on Wednesday welcomed a United States Senate vote that appeared to clear the way for a final round of negotiations over a sweeping trans-Pacific trade pact and may have made it easier for governments to make politically risky concessions.

香港——周三，美国的亚洲盟友对联邦参议院的表决结果表示欢迎。这一结果看来为一项广泛的跨太平洋贸易协定开展最后一轮谈判扫清了障碍，而且可能会令各国政府更易于做出带有政治风险的让步。

Japan’s minister responsible for trade negotiations, Akira Amari, said a congressional victory for President Obama could open the way for a deal as soon as next month.

日本负责贸易谈判的大臣甘利明(Akira Amari)表示，奥巴马总统在国会获取的胜利或许会为最快于下月达成协议铺平道路。

“It’s possible we could have a ministerial-level meeting in July and conclude a broad agreement,” he told reporters. Any agreement would then require putting legislation in each country into effect, followed by approval there, which could take months.

“我们有可能在7月举行部长级会议，达成一项广泛的协议，”他告诉记者。无论内容如何，协议均需各个国家的立法机构批准并实施，而这个过程可能需要好几个月的时间。

China, which is not among the 12 nations negotiating the deal and had proposed a competing agreement, refrained from criticizing the vote.

中国并未包含在参与这项协定谈判的12个国家中，并已提出了一个与之竞争的协议。它没有对参议院的此次表决提出批评。

For Mr. Obama, the deal, which appeared headed toward passage on Wednesday, represents an important element of the so-called pivot to Asia to help maintain United States influence as countries grow increasingly dependent on trade with China. For American allies, it offers the political cover to commit to trade concessions, removing the risk that Congress might reject the negotiated deal.

看起来，该协定在本周三离获得通过更进一步。对于奥巴马来说，它是“重返亚洲”战略的重要一环。就在各国日益依靠对华贸易的时候，美国实施了“重返亚洲”战略，以维持自身在该地区的影响力。对于美国的盟友来说，它为承诺做出贸易让步提供了政治掩护，消除了美国国会拒绝接受谈判协议的风险。

China was initially wary of the trade measure, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, seeing it several years ago as potentially giving an advantage to American allies’ business over Chinese companies in United States markets. But those objections have faded as China has begun energetically pursuing its own regional trade agreements with East Asian neighbors.

中国起初对这项名为“跨太平洋伙伴关系”（Trans-Pacific Partnership，简称TPP）的贸易协定持警惕态度，头几年的时候认为它可能会使来自美国盟友的公司在美国市场上比中国公司更占优势。然而，随着中国开始积极与东亚邻国达成区域性的贸易协议，这种反对的声音逐渐消退。

“Even if T.P.P. is done, I don’t think it will pose any threat to China — we follow our own efforts,” said He Weiwen, a former Chinese commerce ministry official who is now a director of the influential China-United States-European Union Study Center at the China Association of International Trade in Beijing.

曾担任商务部官员的中国国际贸易学会中美欧研究中心主任何伟文表示，“即便达成了TPP协定，我觉得也不会对中国构成威胁——我们要走自己的道路。”

The Senate voted on Tuesday to end debate on legislation that would give Mr. Obama and his successor the authority for the next six years to negotiate trade agreements and submit them to Congress with no amendments or filibusters allowed.

参议院周二的表决是为了结束围绕授予奥巴马总统及其继任者贸易谈判权的立法所展开的辩论。这项授权将允许总统在接下来的六年时间里就贸易协定开展谈判，并将协议提交给国会，而国会无权修订最后的协定，也无法再实施冗长演说拖延战术。

Ending debate required 60 votes, which the Senate’s Republican leadership barely mustered with limited support from Democrats. Passage of the actual legislation requires only 51 votes and would send the bill to the president, as the House of Representatives has already approved it.

参议院的共和党领导层获得了民主党人的有限支持，勉强凑够了结束辩论所需的60票。实际的授权只要51票便能获得通过，然后就可以提交给总统签署，因为众议院已经批准同样的提案。

Like previous presidents, who have had similar trade negotiating authority, Mr. Obama contended that the authorization was necessary so other countries would make all available concessions in talks with American trade negotiators, instead of reserving some in case Congress rewrote a deal.

前几任总统也拥有类似的贸易谈判权。与他们一样，奥巴马提出，这种授权是必要的，如此一来，其他国家才会在与美国贸易谈判代表进行协商的时候做出所有可能的让步，而不是有所保留，以防美国国会改写协议。

But American labor unions, environmental activists and other critics bitterly opposed passage of the negotiating authority, contending that it undermined the ability of Congress to stop administration negotiators from working with large corporations to craft deals that might not be advantageous to workers or the environment.

不过，美国国内的工会组织、环保人士及其他一些持批评态度的人士强烈反对通过授予总统谈判权的法案，认为这会削弱国会阻止政府谈判代表与大企业携手达成可能会对劳动者或环境不利的协议的能力。

Final congressional approval of the legislation would clear the way for a difficult final round of talks on the details of the trade agreement, which would remove trade barriers from Canada and Chile to Australia, Singapore and Japan.

国会最终通过这项授权会为开启最后一轮有关TPP细节的艰难谈判扫清障碍。该协议将会移除从加拿大、智利到澳大利亚、新加坡和日本的贸易壁垒。

Japan has been an especially difficult negotiating partner for the United States because it wants to preserve trade barriers on rice, pork and other agricultural products. Tokyo has indicated that it is prepared to compromise but, fearful of Japan’s restive farm lobby, it has refused to discuss details in public as long as it was unclear whether Mr. Obama had the power to conclude a deal.

对于美国来说，日本是一个特别难对付的洽谈伙伴，因为日本希望保留大米、猪肉及其他一些农产品的贸易壁垒。东京方面已经表明，日本准备做出让步，但由于担心强硬的本国农业游说团体，只要尚不确定奥巴马是否有权达成协议，日本就拒绝公开探讨细节。

Another difficult question, which comes up for practically every free trade agreement, lies in so-called rules of origin: how to determine which goods are really made predominantly within the free-trade region and therefore qualify for tariff removal and other preferential trade access.

另一个难题几乎每项自由贸易协议都会遇到，那就是所谓的“原产地规则”：如何确定哪些商品真的是在自由贸易区制造的，因此有资格免除关税，并获得其他优惠贸易待遇。

Under the North American Free Trade Agreement, for example, garments do not just need to be sewn in North America to cross borders without being subject to tariffs; the garments generally need to be made from fabric that was woven in North America, and the fabric itself must be woven from yarn that was made in North America. That rule was written to prevent Mexican manufacturers from buying lots of precut, cheaper fabric from China and elsewhere and assembling it into inexpensive shirts for duty-free shipment to the United States.

例如，根据北美自由贸易协定(North American Free Trade Agreement)的规定，要想免除关税，服装类产品不仅需要在北美缝制，通常还需要由北美的布料制成，而这些布料本身必须由北美生产的纱线制成。制定这项规定是为了防止墨西哥生产商从中国等地方购买大量预先裁剪的便宜布料，再利用这些织物缝制成便宜的成衣，运往美国，而不用交税。

The Trans-Pacific Partnership includes Vietnam, a large garment-manufacturing nation that relies heavily on fabric imported from China. The negotiations pose the next battleground in a decades-long fight. The American textile industry consistently lobbies for the trade status of garments to be determined by where the material was made, not just where garments were sewn.

TPP谈判国中包括越南。这个服装生产大国严重依赖从中国进口的布料。相关谈判为这场长达几十年的争斗开辟了另一个战场。美国纺织业一直在开展游说活动，希望服装的贸易地位由原材料的产地决定，而不仅仅是缝制成衣的地点。

But large retailers and fashion brands want to link the trade status only to where garments are sewn, making it easier to use low-cost Chinese fabrics.

不过，大型零售商和时尚品牌希望这种贸易地位只由成衣产地决定，更易于它们使用成本较低的中国布料。

China’s trade policy analysts are eager to scrutinize the language of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership pact as soon as it is completed and released, to determine how it might actually affect Chinese exporters, Mr. He said.

何伟文表示，这12个国家一达成并公布TPP协定，中国的贸易政策分析人士就会马上细读协定条文，从而判断实际上它会如何影响中国出口商。