奥巴马争取贸易推动权遭民主党内反对

WASHINGTON — President Obama is facing opposition from fellow Democrats to one of his top priorities: winning the power to negotiate international trade agreements and speed them through Congress.

华盛顿——奥巴马总统在他极为重要的一项议题上，在民主党内部遭遇了反对，那就是取得授权从而就国际贸易协定开展谈判，并使协议快速在国会得到通过。

As Mr. Obama’s team works privately to line up support for the so-called trade promotion authority, a coalition of Democratic lawmakers and activists from organized labor, environmental, religious and civil rights groups is stepping up efforts to stop him.

奥巴马的团队在私下里努力为所谓的“贸易推动权”(trade promotion authority)赢得支持，而此时民主党议员、劳工团体，以及环保、宗教、民权组织正联合起来，极力阻止奥巴马。

“Fast track would be yet another insult to the American worker,” Representative Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut, said at a Thursday news conference on Capitol Hill, where she predicted the effort’s defeat. “It will not happen. We are not going to do it.”

“批准‘快速通道’(fast-track)会再一次侮辱美国的工作人群，”康涅狄格州民主党众议员罗莎·德劳洛(Rosa DeLauro)周四在国会山举行的一场新闻发布会上表示。她预计奥巴马的提案不会得到国会通过，“这事成不了，我们不会这样做。”

Winning the authority would allow Mr. Obama to finish and gain swift approval of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a sprawling pact that his administration has been painstakingly negotiating.

赢得这项权力后，奥巴马就可以结束“跨太平洋伙伴关系”（Trans-Pacific Partnership，简称TPP）谈判，并迅速使其得到通过。TPP是一个范围很广的协定，奥巴马政府一直在艰难地谈判。

But Ms. DeLauro and other Democratic lawmakers argue that the president is asking for carte blanche to secretly negotiate a trade deal that would cost American jobs, weaken food safety and financial regulations and undermine environmental and labor standards.

然而德劳洛和其他民主党议员认为，奥巴马是在索取秘密谈判贸易协定的无限权力，这样会导致美国失去就业岗位、损害食品安全、弱化金融监管、破坏环保和劳工保障的标准。

The dispute pits Mr. Obama against his own party over what the president has identified as one of the few patches of common ground between him and Republicans that could yield an accomplishment during his final two years in office. Its outcome could determine the fate of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a complicated 12-nation agreement that would encompass 40 percent of the world economy and is a crucial element of Mr. Obama’s pivot to Asia. It is also animating an intraparty policy fight among Democrats that could shape the 2016 presidential campaign.

这让奥巴马与自己的政党发生了争执，奥巴马认为这是他与共和党之间少有的共识之一，可以借此在他执政的最后两年取得一些政绩。其结果可能会决定TPP的命运，这项复杂的协议涵盖12个国家，囊括全球经济总量的40%，在奥巴马转向亚洲的战略中是一个关键组成部分。它也在民主党内部引发了政策之争，可能会影响2016年的总统大选。

Mr. Obama has dispatched top officials, led by his chief envoy, Michael B. Froman, to Congress to quietly make the case for the agreement and build support for winning the trade authority.

奥巴马派出了以贸易代表迈克尔·B·弗罗曼(Michael B. Froman)为首的一些高层官员，到国会低调地替协议辩护，试图为拿到贸易权力而赢得支持。

“The president has directed us to be responsive to the very important questions that are being asked by members of Congress,” Thomas E. Perez, the labor secretary, said in an interview. “What’s going on now, I think, is part of the healthy give-and-take that should take place when we’re contemplating an important piece of legislation.”

“总统指示我们，要对国会议员提出的十分重要的问题做出回应，”劳工部长托马斯·E·佩雷斯(Thomas E. Perez)在采访中表示。“我想现在正在开展的事情，是一场有益的讨价还价中的一部分，我们在考虑一项重要的立法时，应该开展这样的讨论。”

At the same time, Mr. Obama’s advisers see a ripe opportunity to win approval of his trade agenda given that Congress is fully under the control of Republicans who back trade liberalization.

与此同时，奥巴马的顾问们认为，现在为他的贸易政策赢得支持的时机已经成熟，因为共和党已经完全控制国会，而共和党支持贸易自由化。

Mr. Obama has acknowledged the challenge from his own ranks, saying last month that he must do more to explain how the Trans-Pacific Partnership would help American workers.

奥巴马承认，自身政党内部存在挑战，并于上个月表示他必须做出更多努力，解释TPP能怎样帮助美国的工作人群。

Lori Wallach, the director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, said presidential efforts to secure the trade power had met with hostility from Congress since the adoption of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement and the creation of the World Trade Organization. Those are the product of a collaboration of another Republican Congress and a Democratic president, Bill Clinton.

公众公民(Public Citizen)旗下的全球贸易观察项目(Global Trade Watch)主任洛丽·沃勒克(Lori Wallach)表示，总统取得贸易权力的努力，从《北美自由贸易协定》(North American Free Trade Agreement)在1994年生效、世界贸易组织(World Trade Organization)成立以来，就面临了国会的敌意。这两项举措也是共和党国会和民主党总统比尔·克林顿(Bill Clinton)联手的产物。

Those measures “woke up Congress about what ‘fast track’ means,” she said in an interview, and ever since “it’s really hard to get them to delegate that authority.” She noted that in the 21 years since those deals were approved, Congress has awarded trade promotion authority to a president for a total of only five years.

这两个事件“让国会对‘快速通道’意味着什么产生了警觉，”沃勒克在一次采访中说，从那以来，“就很难让他们把这项权力交给别人。”她提到，那两项贸易协定得到通过以来的21年里，国会只向一位总统授予了总共五年的贸易推动权。

“For Obama, it’s particularly tricky, because that big power grab would be used for this agreement that is basically a Trojan horse for every kind of extreme corporate proposal that could not get passed in the sunshine of public debate,” she said.

她说，“对奥巴马来说，这尤其棘手，因为如此大举攫取权力，针对的却是这个协议。而它基本上是一个特洛伊木马，满足了企业提出的每一种极端的要求，这些要求在公共辩论的眼光下根本不会得到通过。”

The White House rejects the characterization, arguing that the Trans-Pacific Partnership would raise standards across the board. Mr. Perez said officials were incorporating lawmakers’ concerns about important elements of the agreement — like the need for stronger and quicker enforcement measures — into the continuing international negotiations.

白宫否认这种说法，辩称TPP可以全面提高标准。佩雷斯表示，官员们正在将国会议员对协议中重要部分的顾虑——包括需要建立更强、更迅速的执法机制——纳入仍在进行的国际谈判中。

“The guidance from the president has been very clear: I want the best agreement that’s going to protect American workers, provide decent hours and wages, and address both environment and labor conditions,” Mr. Perez said.

佩雷斯说，“总统的指示十分明确：我想得到一个最好的协议，要能保护美国工作者的利益，提供体面的工时和薪水，并应对环保和劳动条件的问题。”

Republicans and centrist Democrats strongly support Mr. Obama’s trade agenda. But given the bitter partisan divisions in Washington and Mr. Obama’s aggressive use of executive action in recent months, it is unclear how unified Republicans will be in support of his trade initiatives.

共和党和民主党中间派强烈支持奥巴马的贸易政策。然而鉴于华盛顿存在尖锐的党派分歧，并且奥巴马近几个月来大举运用行政权力，尚不清楚共和党能在多大程度上联合起来支持他在贸易方面的举措。

“This is the rare issue in which he’s going to have more problems with the Democrats than with the Republicans because he is working against the wishes of key elements of the Democratic coalition,” said David Karol, an associate professor at the University of Maryland who studies trade policy. “But some Republicans also just don’t want to give President Obama a victory, period, no matter how much they may like the policy.”

“这是一个奥巴马与民主党产生的问题会比共和党多的罕见问题，因为他的举动与民主党阵营中一些关键派系的愿望相违背，”马里兰大学(University of Maryland)研究贸易政策的副教授戴维·卡罗尔(David Karol)表示。“然而一些共和党人却又不想把胜利送给奥巴马总统，没门儿，无论他们多喜欢这项政策。”

At the same time, business groups that are highly motivated to win approval of the new agreements are pressing Mr. Obama to take a more active role in selling his trade policies in Congress. “He’s going to need to really step out a lot more and make the case for why this is important,” said Christopher Wenk, senior director of international policy at the United States Chamber of Commerce. “There are a lot of Democrats who want to be helpful on this, but they’re waiting for the president to be out there leading — they need some cover.”

与此同时，很有动力为新的协议赢得批准的商业团体，正在向奥巴马施压，要求他扮演更积极的角色，在国会里推销他的贸易政策。“他需要真的迈出大得多的步子，阐明为什么这个协议很重要，”美国商会(United States Chamber of Commerce)国际政策高级总监克里斯托弗·温克(Christopher Wenk)表示。“有很多民主党人愿意在这件事上帮忙，但是他们还在等待总统打头阵，他们需要一些掩护。”