UNIT1 Free Trade Has Enriched the World with More than Diverse Goods自由贸易给世界带来的不仅是丰富多彩的商品By Daniel GriswoldTune in to cable TV, talk radio, or the blogosphere and you will soon be hit over the head with the message that free trade is destroying America. According to the economic populists on the left and right, the wages, jobs, and futures of Main Street Americans are being sacrificed daily to the gods of globalization.只要打开有线电视、收音机或博客网，你很快就会惊讶地获悉：自由贸易正在摧毁美国。
据左右两派经济民粹主义者所说，美国普通老百姓的工资、工作和未来天天都在被当作供品献祭给全球化的神明们。
On trade, as on so much else, the populists have it wrong again. Free trade and globalization are great blessings to American families. Trade is delivering lower prices and more variety to consumers, especially the poor, while creating better paying jobs for the middle class. Beyond the US shores, the spread of economic openness is building a more peaceful, democratic and humane world for our children.就像在其他许多事情上一样，这些民粹主义者们在贸易问题上又搞错了。
自由贸易与全球化对美国家庭来说是种种福音。
贸易在为中产阶级创造了许多薪酬丰厚的工作岗位的同时，也为消费者（尤其是穷人）带来了价格低廉、品种多样的商品。
席卷美国内外的经济开放浪潮正在为我们的孩子们创建一个更为和谐、民主和人性化的世界。
Now it may seem an odd moment to tout the benefits of trade for Main Street America. After all, unemployment is nearing 10 percent, manufacturing is in a slump, and global poverty is rising. But those are all the result of the current recession, a downturn that was not caused by trade but by misguided monetary and housing policies that were “Made in the USA”.看起来，现在吹嘘贸易给美国百姓带来好处似乎并不合时宜。
毕竟，目前的失业率几乎高达10%，制造业也处于萧条之中，而全球范围的贫困在不断加剧。
但是，那些问题都是眼前的经济衰退所带来的后果，这是一种经济下滑现象，它不是由贸易、而是由“美国制造”的错误的货币政策和房地产政策造成的。
During difficult economic times, import competition allows American families to keep their heads above water by delivering lower prices on staples such as food, clothing, and shoes. The prices we pay for goods exposed to global trade tend to rise more slowly than inflation, or even fall. The expansion of product variety alone from trade delivers an estimated 400 billion a year in benefits to American families because of increased consumer satisfaction, according to a 2004 study by Christian Broda and David E. Weinstein for the National Bureau of Economic Research.在经济困难时期，进口竞争给美国家庭带来了大量诸如食品、服装和鞋类等物美价廉的日常必需品，才使得他们不致于陷入灭顶之灾。
我们为受全球化贸易影响的物品所支付价格的上涨速度往往比通货膨胀的涨幅更慢，或者说，价格甚至反而下降。
根据“（美国）国家经济研究局”克里斯汀·布洛达和大卫.E.威恩斯特于2004年所做的一项研究，由于消费者满意度的提升，仅产品的品种扩展这一项每年就给美国家庭带来约四千亿美元的实惠。
No consumer benefit proportionally more from trade than the poor, and nobody suffers more from existing trade barriers. The imported fresh fruit and vegetables, T-shirts and discounted sneakers sold at big-box retailers loom especially large in the budgets of poor and middle-class families. Perversely, the highest remaining US trade barriers are aimed at products that are disproportionately made by poor people abroad and consumed by poor people at home. The 25 billion the US government collects each year through import tariffs is the most regressive tax in the federal arsenal. According to a study by the Progressive Policy Institute, a single mother earning 20,000 a year pays a much higher share of her income for import duties than a managerearning 100,000 a year. Labor unions and other groups that oppose tariff-lowering trade agreements are unwittingly serving a status quo that is punishing the poor.没有任何消费者从贸易中获得的好处——按比例计算——会比穷人获得的多；也没有任何人遭受现有的贸易壁垒所带来的祸害会比穷人所遭的多。
大型零售超市销售的进口鲜果、蔬菜、T恤衫和折价运动鞋在穷人和中产阶级家庭的消费预算中占据非常高的比例。
而不合常理的是，美国现存最高的贸易壁垒的目标却是针对绝大部分由国外穷人生产、国内穷人消费的产品。
美国政府每年通过进口关税获取的250亿美元的税收是联邦宝库中递减幅度最大的税种。
一项由“进步政策研究所”所做的研究表明，按进口关税中所占个人收入比例计算，一位年收入为两万美元的单亲母亲所支付的进口关税要比年收入为十万美元的经理高得多。
工会和其他一些团体反对低关税的贸易协议，但他们在无意识地维护的却是损害穷人利益的现行贸易制度。
Despite what the populists tell us, the consumer benefits of trade have not come at the expense of jobs or wages. As a candidate for president in 2007, Barack Obama was echoing CNN’s Lou Dobbs when he told a cheering union crowd in Chicago that importing lower-priced T-shirts from developing countries was not worth the loss of jobs. “People don’t want a cheaper T-shirt if they’re losing a job in the process,”he said. “They would rather have a job and pay a little bit more for a T-shirt.”不管民粹主义者们怎么说三道四，消费者从贸易中所获的好处并没有损害我们的就业和薪酬。
作为2007年的总统候选人，奥巴马作为美国有线新闻网（CNN）的卢·道布斯的应声虫，对着芝加哥一群兴高采烈的工会会员们说，从发展中国家进口低价T 恤衫跟失去就业机会相比是不值得的。
“如果为了一件廉价的T恤衫而丢失工作的话，大家是决不会那么做的，”他说。
“他们宁愿要一份工作，也不在乎为T恤衫付高点的价格。
”Like most politicians, candidate Obama chose to represent a small but noisy special interest at the expense of the large majority of Americans. Only one-third of one percent of American workers are engaged in making clothing and textiles of any kind. That comparescompares to the virtually 100 percent of Americans who buy and wear T-shirts and other clothing. If Americans are forced to pay higher prices because of import restrictions, a small number of jobs would be “saved”but at a huge cost to working families. 与多数政客一样，总统候选人奥巴马也情愿代表那些少数喧嚣的特殊利益团体，而牺牲绝大多数美国普通百姓的利益。