经济学人下载:单独行事 (2)

In the post-war period American governments tended to side with the purists.
在战后时期，美国政府倾向支持纯粹主义者。

But according to Anne Krueger of Johns Hopkins University, writing in the Journal of Economic Perspectives,
但是约翰霍普金斯大学的安妮·克鲁格在《经济展望杂志》中写道，

by 1982 gridlock in multilateral talks meant it switched to a twin-track approach, simultaneously pushing for multilateral deals and negotiating preferential ones.
到1982年，多边会谈中的僵局意味着其转向双轨制，力图多边贸易的同时又协商特惠协议。

Chief among these was the North American Free Trade Agreement,
其中为首的就是北美自由贸易协定，

which came into force in 1994 and is due to be replaced by the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement (USMCA).
其于1994年生效并将被美墨加三国协议（USMCA）所取代。

The approach spread. Nearly 300 preferential trade deals are now recorded by the WTO.
这种方式传播开来。WTO现在记录了近300份特惠贸易协议。

Many go beyond tariff-cutting to include rules on state-owned enterprises, intellectual property and trade in services.
很多协议远不止关税减让，还包括针对国有企业的规则、知识产权以及服务贸易。

Having grown into an integrated trading area, the EU became an enthusiastic proponent,
EU已成长为了一个综合的贸易区，它变成了一位热情的支持者，

striking many reciprocal deals, including with Canada, Mexico and Singapore. In June it started talks with Australia.
和包括加拿大、墨西哥以及新加坡在内的多国签署了互惠协议。今年6月，EU开始和澳大利亚进行会谈。

As such deals proliferated, economists studied their impact. One fear had been that they might divert custom from more efficient producers in third countries.
随着这种协议的激增，经济学家研究了它们的影响。担忧之一是它们可能会转移第三国更高效生产商的关税。

But a paper by Aaditya Mattoo, Alen Mulabdic and Michele Ruta of the World Bank, published in 2017,
但世界银行的阿迪蒂亚·玛图、艾伦·穆拉比奇以及米歇尔·鲁塔于2017年发表的一篇论文发现

found that shallow deals do little to reduce trade with third countries, and deep ones tend to increase it.
这种浅薄的协议和减少第三国贸易关系不大，并且深入协议易于增加第三国贸易。

This, they think, is because rules on competition policy, subsidies and standards are hard to apply in a discriminatory way.
他们认为这是因为针对竞争政策、补贴和标准的规定很难以一种歧视性的方式进行。

But there is also reason to fear that preferential deals weaken the impetus towards comprehensive liberalisation.
但还是有理由担心特惠协议会削弱全面自由化的动力。

Nuno Limao of the University of Maryland, and others,
马里兰大学的Nuno Limao以及其他人发现

have found that America and the EU offered less tariff liberalisation in multilateral talks in product areas where they had already granted preferential tariffs in bilateral deals.
美国和欧盟已经在一些产区的双边协议中实施了特惠关税，而在这些地区的双边会谈中，美国和欧盟提供的关税自由更少。

Though previous American administrations were sometimes frustrated with the WTO, they viewed it as the foundation of the trading system.
虽然之前的美国政府对WTO偶感失望，但是他们将这视为贸易体系的基础。

Preferential deals were an instrument of diplomacy. TPP was intended to create a template for a trading system that might eventually include China,
特惠协议是一种外交手段。TPP曾旨在为一种最终包括中国的贸易体系创造模板，

and perhaps give reform-minded Chinese policymakers something to aim for.
并且有可能为决心改革的中国决策人提供目标。