Xu Jin: The US -Mexico -Canada Trade Agreement reached, the United States completed a close -up and long attack in trade, and the global economic governance order faced major changes.How to control diplomacy and internal affairs, how can China rational countermeasures?
The Chinese people have returned to work, and the world's appearance has changed.Even if there are many cold war evaluations in social media, is this really the case?
The US -Mexico -Canada Agreement reached that the United States is the biggest winner. From a trade, the United States does have made a lot of progress.
September 30 is the last time point for trade negotiations between the United States and Canada. The United States and Canada finally reached an agreement before the deadline.This means that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is renamed by update and renamed the United States-Mexico-CANADA AGREEMEMENT (USMCA).
Regardless of whether it is called NAFTA, the core is that Canada and Mexico will continue to maintain a three -sided agreement with the United States. The leaders of the Three Kingdoms will sign the agreement at the end of November to reach an agreement before the current President Enrique President Enrique President Enrique President ENRIQUEPENANIETO.
How to look at this incident?I have to say that this is a victory of Trump, which means that the circle of friends in trade continues to expand.The new agreement has replaced the 24 -year -old North American Free Trade Agreement. The annual trade volume involved is US $ 1.2 trillion, which continues to maintain natural benefits to all parties, but it is obviously more favorable for the United States.
The negotiation process can be regarded as the result of the use of the United States' relationship between Canada and Mexico.Mexico is relatively weak in economic and trade relations, and the president is about to step down this year, and has reached an agreement with the United States as early as August.This agreement allows Canada to advance and retreat Vegan.Since this year, Trump has even threatened Canada to kick out the North American trade agreement, and the outside world once believed that the three -sided trade agreement was soaked.
Canada has previously contacted Mexico to oppose Trump, and the political style is also left, but the situation in Mexico has made Canada choice to become smaller.Trump said he would either join the new agreement or face tariff punishment, and Canada finally chose to compromise with the United States under pressure.
It can be predicted that Trump will continue this model in terms of external models.What does this model mean?In the face of threats, when negotiating in the United States, weak countries often cooperate with the United States first, which means that the secondary powers such as Canada are often faced with marginal or worse cooperation.
The United States creates its own new international trade pattern
This can lead to the second point. What is the global trade pattern in the future?
Before Trump threatened to withdraw from NAFTA and even WTO, it was believed that he wanted to oppose all multilateral trade models, but at present, Trump's roadmap is becoming increasingly obvious.In multilateral trade, fighting for more benefits for the United States and trying to create a new pattern of international trade centered on itself.After the agreement was reached, Trump's speech stated that this is one of the most important trade agreements that it has reached so far, emphasizing that economic security and trade are the pillars of national security (the full text can be visible Xu Jin's economic man.)
This is not completely false. By getting close neighbors in Mexico and Canada, the United States has a long -distance attack pattern in terms of trade.It can be said that the three kingdoms agreement is about the prototype of the future international trade. It is not only in this agreement involving a trillion amount, but also that its model will affect the world.
The United States is like today's Rome.In the ancient Roman world, everything happened in Rome, in fact, it would determine the peripheral world of Rome.This time, the three -sided agreement of the US -Canada -Mexico seemed to be just about the three countries. In fact, its results affected other countries.In the past, the United States advocated free trade and treated other countries more in a large country. It didn't mind eating a small loss. Now the United States advocates fair trade. In fact, it is more straightforward to emphasize the interests of the United States.Multilateral trade will not withdraw, but it will be based on the United States.
This change has a huge impact on China.The USMCA agreement involves the terms of other countries, stipulating that the members of the agreement shall not sign a bilateral free trade agreement with non -market economy countries. If one of the three countries signed a bilateral free trade agreement with non -market economy countries, then the other two countries in the member statesThe agreement will be terminated six months in advance after the termination of the Three Kingdoms Agreement.
In the context of the Sino -US trade war, the so -called non -market economy countries obviously point out.This strategy is not isolated, and the US Minister of Commerce has said that this will be a template for the free trade agreement between the United States and countries in the future.The outside world calls it the clause of the poison pills in the trade agreement.
In fact, before that, the United States and the European Union Japan had been in contact.On September 25, the US trade representative Robert Lighthizer, the EU Trade Commissioner Sicilia Bull; CECILIA MALMSTROM, and the Minister of Economic and Trade and Industry Hiroshige Seko (Three -party talks at a time.
After the meeting, the Three Kingdoms issued a joint statement stating that the third -country non -market -led policy and practices led to serious overcapacity, hindering the development and use of innovative technologies, and destroying the normal operation of international trade.Jin Economic Man).
Earlier, Trump retired from TPP negotiation shortly after taking office, but many terms in the TPP initiative were applied to the USMCA agreement, such as intellectual property protection, the principles of origin, and labor benefits.In other words, if the United States really promotes this approach to negotiations with free trade agreements with Japan, Europe, India and other countries, it means that the United States builds a free trade system with its own as the core with bilateral trade agreements.
In this system, the United States does not need to afford the obligations of the WTO organization. It can sign a more positive agreement in accordance with the specific situation and strength of the United States and other countries, and it will naturally be more conducive to the United States.
In this way, this cannot be said to be a major change in the global economic governance order after World War II.President Wilson in World War I, the President Roosevelt proposal in World War II, and the post -war economic order of the joint war of the joint war, with multilateral organization and rules management as the core mechanism, dominated the globalization wave of the global countries after the war.The four Asian dragons, Latin America, ASEAN, and India and other countries have benefited.
But now USMCA as a prototype, it is different.It is too early to say that this order will replace the old order, but in any case, this possibility has emerged.In just 12 months ago, who could expect this?
China is undoubtedly the greatest beneficiary of the existing global trade order, and naturally, it is also the country with the greatest influence of this change.To contact the latest speech by US Vice President Pence, China urgently needed countermeasures.
China Copper: Cooperation and Reform
Putting aside the right or wrong, how can China deal with it rationally?First of all, it should be clear that the situation has changed, from trade derivative to regions outside trade.Previously, the trade war has been upgraded, and the United States announced that it will impose new tariffs on US $ 200 billion in goods, and threatened these tariffs next year will increase from 10%to 25%.
Fundamentally speaking, the United States and Europe and Japan are small disputes in their own family, and most of the European Japan will compromise.The vicious trade war will only occur between China and the United States, and it is difficult to occur between the United States and Europe.Regarding Trump's imagination of rocket launchers for all countries and triggering world wars, it is not so reliable.
In terms of international relations, the pattern is becoming clearer, and countries are also divided into combination.Obviously, Trump's current attack is actually a bit lost for the two -three -year strong country. As long as the small country is in response to the United States, it is more benefiting.
Secondly, it seems that China's response to economic and trade should emphasize cooperation and strive for more alliances.
Taking the European Union as an example, China and the European Union are also strengthening economic and trade cooperation. For example, BASF has increased investment in China, and a recent investment is close to $ 10 billion.Earlier, China and the European Union conducted long -term negotiations on the comprehensive investment agreement. In the current international environment, many public opinion believes that the current negotiations are better.
As for Japan, although the focus of the United States is in China this year, it is also beating Japan's mdash; MDASH; on the one hand, Japan is required to re -negotiate bilateral trade clauses, open market imports to import more American agricultural products, and threaten Japanese cars exported to the United States will suffer tariffs on tariffs on the United States.Strike.At present, Toyota and other cars have also increased investment in China. Toyota's sales data in China is also optimistic. The total sales of passenger cars in China have declined, and Toyota's total sales in China have increased by 23%.
Nowadays, the multilateral trading system is impacted, bilateral negotiations are becoming more and more important, and the status of regional free trade zones is also rising.For example, China, Japan and South Korea FTA, you can pay attention.This is a free trade agreement between China, Japan, and South Korea. The population of the three countries of the three countries adds up to 1.5 billion, and the economic ranking is also very high, but the cooperation has not been smooth.This proposal was proposed as early as 2002. It was not until ten years later that it would begin to negotiate. If there is really results, this is a great achievement, which may be the third largest economic and trade zone in the world.
Finally, the current world pattern can be described as the Sino -US game, and the onlookers bet on both sides.On the occasion of the New Cold War in China and the United States, how much do we really know about the Cold War?
Looking back at history, the outbreak of the Cold War is considered to be a manifestation of the Security Dilemma; Mdash; that is, a country's measures taken in order to ensure their own security will reduce the sense of security in other countries.Actions, these measures have led to the first unsafe phenomenon of the country to take action.
The famous Cold War scholar John Bull; Lewis Bull; John Lewis Gaddis reviewed the Cold War in the Cold War and other books, and also emphasized how the Cold War began to be difficult to assert, but the lack of mutual trust caused a sense of insecurity to rise, even if the heart was attentive,The most kind and most visible leader cannot avoid the vortex of mutual distrust.
From the trade war to the Cold War, there were still many transition buffers in the middle. When I talked about the cold war lessons, Gardis also said that the Cold War was cold first.This means that it should not be randomly, especially to avoid strengthening the vortex of distrust in security difficulties.In the long run, it is difficult for diplomacy and internal affairs to separate, and China's rational countermeasures need to take the relationship between getting along with the peripheral power and the relationship between internal reform.This article only represents the author's own point of view. The author is also the founder of the Economy Reading Club. Recently, he has not lost his way. He is not in Tokyo.