美国企业目前面临巨大挑战。与中国贸易战的起伏正在扰乱供应链。与欧盟酝酿已久的关税战可能很快就会结束。由于唐纳德·特朗普总统突然决定从叙利亚撤军，并给土耳其总统雷杰普·塔伊普·埃尔多安开了一个攻击与我们结盟的库尔德武装的绿灯，中东现在更加不稳定。
这种不确定性漩涡有可能阻碍美国经济增长，并降低全球预测。超过十分之六的首席执行官表示，贸易纠纷损害了他们的业务。许多公司搁置了扩张计划，因为它们采取了“观望”的方法。9月，广受关注的ISM制造业指数连续第二个月收缩，创下2009年以来的最糟糕水平。服务业几乎没有扩张。
国会无权解决与中国或欧盟的贸易争端，也无权让叙利亚问题倒退。但是，立法者可以在未来几个月采取措施，为企业提供更大的确定性——包括通过批准美国-墨西哥-加拿大协议(USMCA)。该协议将给予美国公司更高的信心，至少与加拿大和墨西哥的贸易不会中断。
美中贸协将取代北美自由贸易协定，即1994年实施的自由贸易协定。作为巴拉克·奥巴马总统领导下的前代理和副美国贸易代表，我亲眼目睹了北美自由贸易协定是如何推动这三个国家的经济发展的。今天，墨西哥和加拿大是我们两个最大的贸易伙伴。仅去年一年，美国企业就向加拿大和墨西哥出售了价值超过6500亿美元的商品和服务。这三边贸易支持了超过1200万个美国就业岗位。
但是北美自由贸易协定没有跟上数字革命或者我们现在寻求在美国贸易协定中涵盖的其他重要问题。20世纪90年代初谈判达成该协议时，电子商务几乎不存在。大多数人没有电脑或手机，亚马逊只是杰夫·贝佐斯车库里的一家小书店。
美国马航采纳北美自由贸易协定的基本框架，并在21世纪实现现代化。
例如，美国MCA为技术建立了一套全面的知识产权保护。该协议禁止贸易伙伴对视频、电子书、游戏、应用和音乐征收关税。它延长了这些数字产品的版权期限。它消除了本地存储数据的要求。它还延长了对“生物”药物的知识产权保护，这是一类在上世纪90年代早期几乎不存在的先进药物，现在已经导致对病人的突破性治疗。
这些规定将有助于美国大大小小的公司扩大与加拿大和墨西哥的业务，并使这三个国家的标准更加统一。
美国MCA对知识产权的重视反映了当今经济的现实。知识产权密集型产业已经支持了超过4500万个美国就业岗位，占美国出口的52%，并为美国国内生产总值贡献了6.6万亿美元。
全国各地的企业——不仅仅是与墨西哥和加拿大接壤的各州——将从更新北美自由贸易协定中获益。墨西哥和加拿大是美国商品在46个州的第一和第二大外国购买者。美国中小企业将它们视为最大的两个出口市场。
3月26日，在与唐纳德·特朗普总统就美国-墨西哥-加拿大协定(USMCA)进行会谈后，众议院共和党议员在华盛顿特区白宫外与记者交谈。
加州和科罗拉多州就是这种情况，那里有很大比例的科技初创企业称之为家。北卡罗来纳州、新泽西州、宾夕法尼亚州和马萨诸塞州也是如此，当地经济依赖生物制药创新。这些州的公司每年向加拿大和墨西哥出口数十亿美元的商品和服务——从软件到药品。
众议院议长南希·佩洛西还没有安排对该协议进行投票，但已经发出信号，众议院正在“通过投票表决”她的团队和政府正在努力解决几个问题，包括确保在一些领域有强有力、可行的执法规定。
USMCA并不完美，但从来没有交易是完美的。但是USMCA值得通过。这不仅能巩固我们与加拿大和墨西哥极其密切的贸易关系，还能在动荡时期为美国企业提供更多确定性。
米里亚姆·萨皮罗大使是美国国会议员联盟(Pass USMCA Coalition)的高级顾问，该联盟是一个倡导通过美国-墨西哥-加拿大协定的贸易协会和企业团体，在奥巴马政府期间担任代理和副美国贸易代表。
这篇文章中表达的观点是作者自己的。
TRUMP'S NORTH AMERICA TRADE DEAL WILL GIVE U.S. COMPANIES CONFIDENCE IN UNCERTAIN TIMES | OPINION
American businesses face enormous challenges right now. The ebb and flow of the trade war with China is roiling supply chains. A simmering tariff war with the European Union could soon boil over. And there is now even greater instability in the Middle East, unleashed by President Donald Trump's sudden decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria and give Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan a green light to attack Kurdish forces with whom we had been allied.
This swirl of uncertainty is threatening to hold back U.S. economic growth and has lowered global forecasts. More than six in 10 CEOs say trade disputes have hurt their businesses. Many have shelved expansion plans as they adopt a "wait and see" approach. In September, the widely watched ISM manufacturing index contracted for the second month in a row, registering its worst level since 2009. Service industries have barely expanded.
Congress doesn't have the power to resolve trade disputes with China or the EU or turn back the clock on Syria. But there are steps that lawmakers can take in the coming months to offer greater certainty to businesses—including by approving the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). The deal would give American companies a higher level of confidence that at least trade with Canada and Mexico will not be disrupted.
USMCA would replace NAFTA, the free trade agreement implemented in 1994. As former acting and deputy U.S. trade representative under President Barack Obama, I saw firsthand how NAFTA boosted the economies of all three countries. Today, Mexico and Canada are our two largest trading partners. U.S. businesses sold more than $650 billion worth of goods and services to Canada and Mexico last year alone. This trilateral trade supports over 12 million U.S. jobs.
But NAFTA hasn't kept pace with the digital revolution or other important issues we now seek to cover in U.S. trade agreements. When that deal was negotiated in the early 1990s, e-commerce barely existed. Most people didn't own computers or cell phones, and Amazon was just a small bookstore operating out of Jeff Bezos' garage.
USMCA takes NAFTA's basic framework and modernizes it for the 21st century.
USMCA, for example, establishes a comprehensive set of intellectual property protections for technology. The deal bans trading partners from imposing customs duties on videos, e-books, games, apps and music. It lengthens copyright terms for these digital products. And it eliminates requirements that data be stored locally. It also lengthens intellectual property protections for "biologic" medicines, a class of advanced drugs that barely existed in the early 1990s and has led now to breakthrough treatments for patients.
Such provisions will help American companies—large and small—expand their business with Canada and Mexico, as well as make the standards among all three countries more uniform.
USMCA's emphasis on intellectual property reflects the reality of today's economy. IP-intensive industries already support over 45 million American jobs, account for 52 percent of U.S. exports and contribute $6.6 trillion to the U.S. GDP.
Businesses across the country—not just in the states that border Mexico and Canada—would reap the benefits of updating NAFTA. Mexico and Canada rank as the first and second-largest foreign purchasers of U.S. goods in 46 states. U.S. small and medium-sized businesses count them as their top two export markets.
Republican members of the House talk to reporters outside the White House on March 26 in Washington, D.C., after meeting with President Donald Trump to talk about the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA.
This is the case in states like California and Colorado, where a large percentage of tech startups call home. It is also true in North Carolina, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, where local economies depend on biopharmaceutical innovation. Firms in those states export billions of dollars of goods and services—ranging from software to medicines—to Canada and Mexico every year.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has not yet scheduled a vote on the pact but has signaled that the House is on "a path to yes." Her team and the administration are working to address several issues, including ensuring strong, workable enforcement provisions in a number of areas.
USMCA is not perfect, but no deal ever is. But USMCA is worth passing. Not only would it cement our extremely close trading relationships with Canada and Mexico, but it would also offer U.S. businesses more certainty in a tumultuous time.
Ambassador Miriam Sapiro is a senior adviser to the Pass USMCA Coalition, a group of trade associations and businesses advocating for the passage of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, and served as acting and deputy U.S. trade representative during the Obama administration.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
