Weekly Address: We Should Make Sure the Future Is Written by Us
每周电视讲话：确保未来由我们掌控
WASHINGTON, DC — In this week’s address, the President underscored the importance of continuing to grow our economy and support good-paying jobs for our workers by opening up new markets for American goods and services. While America’s businesses, ranchers, and farmers are already exporting goods at record levels, there’s more room for growth with 95 percent of the world’s customers living outside our borders. In order to pursue new trade agreements, the President called on Congress to pass trade promotion authority so that the U.S. – not China – can play a leading role in negotiating 21st century trade deals that protect our workers, support good wages, and help grow the middle class.
华盛顿：在本周的讲话中，奥巴马总统强调要继续推动经济发展，为美国产品和服务打开新的市场，为劳动者提供高薪的就业岗位。当前美国的企业、牧场主、农场主使得出口产品达到历史新高，对世界各地95%的消费者而言,还有巨大的增长空间。为了达成新的贸易协定，总统呼吁国会通过贸易促进授权法案，让美国而不是中国在21世纪的贸易谈判中扮演领导角色，以此来保护我们的劳动者，为他们提供高薪工作，扩大中产阶级人群。
Hi, everybody. At a moment when our businesses are creating jobs at the fastest pace since the 1990s, we’ve still got to do everything we can to help workers and businesses succeed in the new economy – one that’s competitive, connected, and changing every day.
大家好！当前，我们的企业正在以上世纪90年代以来最快的速度创造大量就业岗位，我们依然还要尽一切努力帮助劳动者和企业在新经济环境下取得成功，这是一个充满竞争、不可分割且日日常新的经济时代。
One thing we know for certain about businesses in the 21st century is that they’ll need to sell more goods and services Made in America to the rest of the world.
对于21世纪的企业，我们都确信一件事情，那就是他们需要将更多的美国产品和服务销售到世界各地。
Now, our businesses already sell goods and services in other countries at record levels. Our farmers, our factory workers, and our small businesses are exporting more than ever before – and exporters tend to pay their workers higher wages.
现在，企业在产品和服务的出口销售上创下了历史记录。我们的农场主、工厂的工人、中小企业的出口产品也比以往任何时候都多，而且出口厂商也更愿意为其员工支付更高的工资。
More small businesses are using the internet to grow their business by reaching new customers they couldn’t reach before, too. As an example, nine in ten American small businesses that use eBay as a platform to sell their products are exporters – with customers in more than 30 different countries on average.
更多的中小企业在利用互联网联系新的客户，扩大业务，这在以前似乎无法做到的。举个例子，90%的美国中小企业利用eBay作为销售平台，将他们的产品出口海外，平均每家都有来自30多个国家的不同客户。
But there’s a lot of room for growth. After all, 95% of the world’s potential customers live outside our borders. Many of them live in the Asia-Pacific – the world’s fastest-growing region. And as we speak, China is trying to write the rules for trade in the 21st century.
但增长空间依然巨大。毕竟世界上95%的潜在客户生活在国外。而他们中的大多数生活在亚太地区，这是全球经济发展速度最快的地区。当下，中国正力争为21世纪的世界贸易制定规则。
That would put our workers and our businesses at a massive disadvantage. We can’t let that happen. We should write those rules.
这将让我们的劳动者和企业陷入极端不利境地。我们不能允许这种情况出现。规则应该由我们去制定。
That’s why Congress should act on something called “trade promotion authority.” This is bipartisan legislation that would protect American workers, and promote American businesses, with strong new trade deals from Asia to Europe that aren’t just free, but are fair. It would level the playing field for American workers. It would hold all countries to the same high labor and environmental standards to which we hold ourselves.
因此，国会应该在“贸易促进授权法案”上有所作为。这是一项两党推动的立法，通过与亚洲和欧洲国家建立全新的贸易协议，促进自由和公平贸易，保护美国的劳动者，促进美国企业发展。这将提升美国劳动者的竞争力，这将促使其它国家也为达到与我们一样的劳动力水平和就业环境而努力。
Now, I’m the first to admit that past trade deals haven’t always lived up to the hype. And that’s why we’ve successfully gone after countries that break the rules at our workers’ expense. But that doesn’t mean we should close ourselves off from new opportunities, and sit on the sidelines while other countries write our future for us. We should seize those opportunities. We should make sure the future is written by us. And if we do, we won’t just keep creating good new jobs for decades to come – we’ll make sure that this century is another all-American century.
我是第一个承认过去的贸易协定的在多数情况下是言过其实的人。正因如此，我们成功制裁了那些破坏规则以我们的劳动者的付出为代价的国家。但这并不意味着我们应该在新的机遇面前闭关自守，坐视其他国家为我们规划未来。我们应该抓住机会，我们应该确保我们的未来由我们自己去书写。如果我们做到了，我们不仅仅能为未来几十年打下创造优良就业岗位的基础，我们还将确保这个世纪再次成为美国的世纪。
Thanks, and have a great weekend.
谢谢，祝周末愉快！ |