2019年经济学人美-墨-加协议(1)（打印版）

Union leaders and Democratic lawmakers were cool at first towards the USMCA,

起初工会领袖和民主党议员对USMCA很冷淡，

a replacement for the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)

一年多前，美国、加拿大和墨西哥谈判代表签署了USMCA，

which was signed by American, Canadian and Mexican trade negotiators over a year ago.

取代了已有25年历史的北美自由贸易协定(NAFTA)。

But on December 10th, after months of further talks, they swung behind a reworked version.

但在12月10日，经过几个月的进一步谈判，他们转而达成了一个修改过的版本。

Richard Trumka, the head of the AFL-CIO, America's largest trade-union group, proclaimed a "new standard for future trade negotiations".

美国最大工会AFL-CIO总裁理查德·特鲁克马赞扬其是“未来贸易谈判的新标准”。

Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives, called it a "victory for America's workers".

众议院民主党发言人南希·佩洛西称这是“美国工人的胜利”。

The reversal may seem surprising. The AFL-CIO has not endorsed an American trade deal in nearly two decades,

这种反转似乎令人惊讶。AFL-CIO在近20年来都没有支持过任何一份美国的贸易协定，

and Ms Pelosi is trying to get President Donald Trump, whose deal this is, impeached.

并且佩洛西女士正在弹劾唐纳德·特朗普总统，而这是特朗普总统促成的协议。

According to polling data provided to The Economist by YouGov and published on December 11th,

根据YouGov提供给《经济学人》并于12月11日公布的调查数据显示，

though 79% of Americans say that "trade and globalisation" are important to them, only 37% say the same of replacing NAFTA with the USMCA.

虽然有79%的美国人表示“贸易和全球化”对他们很重要，但仅有37%的人表示支持USMCA取代NAFTA

But both the politics and the content of the deal have led to unexpected alliances.

但政治和协议的内容都导致了意想不到的联盟。

Supporting the USMCA lets Democrats claim that they are not obstructing Mr Trump's agenda for the sake of it.

支持USMCA让民主党人宣称，他们并不是为了阻碍特朗普的议程。

And on trade, Mr Trump has more in common with the left wing of the Democratic Party than with his own Republicans.

并且在贸易方面，比起自己的共和党人，特朗普与民主党左翼的共同点更多。

Many Democrats agree that previous deals made trade too free, with too few of the benefits going to American workers.

很多民主党人认为，以前的协议使贸易过于自由，美国工人获得的利益太少。

And several of the changes secured by the Democrats are meaningful. Some are sure to be to Mr Trump's taste, too.

并且民主党人取得的一些改变是有意义的。其中一些也一定符合特朗普的胃口。

Among the revisions are an end to intellectual-property protections for biologics, a specific class of drug,

修订的内容包括终止对生物制品、一种特殊级别的药物

and weaker patents for pharmaceuticals in general.

以及总体上较弱的药品专利的知识产权保护。

Democrats say such protections stifle competition from generics and raise drug prices.

民主党人表示这样的保护措施抑制了仿制药的竞争，提高了药品价格。

Unsurprisingly, those changes went down badly with the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, an industry lobby.

不出所料，这些更改受到了行业游说组织美国药物研究和制造商协会的强烈反对。

Its president said they amounted to an abandonment of protections for American companies.

其总裁表示这相当于放弃了对美国公司的保护。