The renegotiation of what US President Trump called ‘the worst trade deal ever’ has resulted in the most detailed environmental chapter in any trade agreement in history. The USMCA mentions dozens of environmental issues that its predecessor, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), overlooked, and in line with contemporary US practice, brings the vast majority of environmental provisions into the core of the agreement, and subjects these provisions to a sanction-based dispute settlement mechanism. It also jettisons two controversial NAFTA measures potentially harmful to the environment. However, this paper argues that the USMCA only makes limited contributions to environmental protection. It primarily replicates most of the environmental provisions included in recent agreements, and only introduces three unprecedented environmental provisions. Moreover, it avoids important issues such as climate change, it does not mention the precautionary principle, and it scales back some environmental provisions related to multilateral environmental agreements.

中文翻译：

---

NAFTA 2.0：有史以来最环保的贸易协定？

美国总统特朗普称之为“有史以来最糟糕的贸易协议”的重新谈判导致了历史上任何贸易协议中最详细的环境章节。USMCA 提到了其前身北美自由贸易协定 (NAFTA) 所忽视的数十个环境问题，并符合美国当代实践，将绝大多数环境条款纳入协议的核心，并将这些条款置于基于制裁的争端解决机制。它还放弃了两项可能对环境有害的有争议的北美自由贸易协定措施。然而，本文认为 USMCA 对环境保护的贡献有限。它主要复制了最近协议中包含的大部分环境条款，并且只引入了三个前所未有的环境规定。此外，它回避了气候变化等重要问题，未提及预防原则，并缩减了与多边环境协定有关的一些环境条款。