The Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement: The Boomerang of Competitive Liberalisation?

澳美自由貿易協定：具有競爭力自由化的自殺？

李察•利佛爾(Richard Leaver)

《澳洲研究》 6期 (2005/09) Pp. 111-144

https://doi.org/10.30414/TJAS.200509_(6).0004

摘要

不算太久以前，全澳花費相當大的精力研析貿易政策的制定。貿易政策之策略大抵可分為兩類。第一類貿易政策之策略聚焦於多邊貿易遊戲規則之演進，其假設是國家政策之本質是種自動化的工具，被用來導引這些規則朝有利於廣泛地增加當地產業競爭優勢的方向前進。在工黨全盛時期，亞太經合會(APEC)的發展即為此一遊戲。而澳洲單方面調降關稅就是當時執政的工黨政府達成此一目標的主要工具。第二類貿易政策策略則是跟隨著壓力團體政治的軌跡，其立論的假設是國家政策是許多相互衝突利益妥協的結果。可論證的是此一策略堪稱是研究貿易政策形成的最古老學派，而此一分析模式之所以在澳洲開始具有吸引力是其有助於瞭解澳洲最近的APEC政策。與進口競爭的澳洲產業舉行密集諮商被霍華德政府在一九九六年用來作為中斷工黨單方面調降關稅時間表之政策合理化的依據。
澳洲貿易部長維爾(Mark Vaile)在2003年2月發表的外交貿易白皮書稱澳洲整體的貿易戰略為具有競爭力自由化(competitive liberalization)。不再將雙邊與區域貿易自由化看成是多邊自由化的次佳選擇，而是多邊自由化的基準點(benchmark)。而具有競爭力自由化戰略在澳美FTA遭到挫折。霍華德私人讓步，首肯低獲利的農業貿易。由於澳洲在與美國的FTA中願意接受低獲利的農業貿易，此一作法背離了數十年來澳洲貿易外交所一直強調的農業貿易自由化。換言之，澳美FTA無異毀壞一半長期以來澳洲貿易外交聲望的泉源。現在澳美FTA雖然並未將澳洲與亞洲貿易帶進死胡同，而實際上又現生機，澳洲已開始與亞洲國家協商FTA。但是，坎培拉當前的關鍵問題是澳洲潛在的東亞FTA伙伴是否也被允許像美國一樣將農業貿易排除在FTA協商中。

關鍵字

澳洲 ； 美國 ； FTA ； 澳美經貿關係

並列摘要

Not all that long ago, considerable intellectual energy was spent across Australia analysing the formation of trade policy. And much as elsewhere, there were two basic approaches. The first approach focussed on the evolution of 'the rules of the game' in multilateral trade, stepping of from the assumption that national policy was essentially an autonomous instrument designed to leverage those rules in directions broadly favourable to local industries. Variants of this approach were common at the high tide of Labor governments when APEC was the name of Canbena's game, and unilateral tariff reductions were its primary means for achieving that end. The second approach consisted of tracking the course of pressure group politics, and worked on the assumption that national policy was the vector outcome of many conflicting interests. Arguably the oldest of all intellectual approaches to trade policy formation-and certainly so in the US-this was beginning to have its attractions for understanding Australia's more recent APEC policy, where intense consultations with import-competing local industries were used in 1996 to justify the suspension of Labor's timetable of unilateral tariff reductions.
But under the Howard government, it seems that much of the hard analytic work required by both these approaches can, at critical junctures, be suspended.
For trade policy-or, more accurately, the rhetoric that infuses it and invests it with broader meaning-has twice defaulted to settings that were flavour of the month in Washington.

並列關鍵字

Australia ； U.S ； FTA ； Australia-U.S Economic Relations