天生冤家：唐纳德·特朗普和特雷莎·梅 | 纽约时报

Donald Trump and Theresa May: An Odd Couple

Prime Minister Theresa May of  will meet President Trump on Friday in Washington for what could be an episode of “The Odd Couple”: The Stiff Headmistress meets the Great Salesman.

英国首相特雷莎·梅本周五在华盛顿将会见特朗普总统，上演一段“天生冤家”的桥段：古板的女校长遭遇伟大的销售员。

Reserved, slightly awkward and serious, Mrs. May does not even have a Twitter account and does her best to remain silent on the key issues of the day, putting her head above water only when she must.

梅保守严肃，略显窘迫，甚至都没有推特账户。对当今诸多重要问题，她尽力缄口不言，若非必要，绝不露头。

Normally, American presidents go on to British leaders about “the special relationship” with a sort of patronizing politeness. But Mr. Trump has already put Mrs. May’s teeth on edge with his cheerful support for a British withdrawal from the European Union, commonly known as Brexit, which she opposed but must carry out.

一般而言，美国总统们会见英国领袖，会彬彬有礼地谈谈“特殊关系”，尽管有点高高在上。可特朗普已经让梅直撇嘴，他欢呼英国退欧，而这正是梅反对却不得已而为之的事。

She has not appreciated his warm relationship with those like Nigel Farage, the former leader of the anti-immigrant U.K. Independence Party, who despises Mrs. May’s Conservative Party and who Mr. Trump has suggested would make a fine ambassador to the United States.

她见不得特朗普和反对移民的英国独立党前领袖奈杰尔·法拉奇之流打得火热，法拉奇鄙视梅领导的保守党，可特朗普却提议让法拉奇成为英国驻美大使。

Still, with Britain planning to leave the European Union in two years or so, Mrs. May needs to show Britons they have big friends out in the world beyond Europe, and the United States is already Britain’s single largest trading partner, not counting the European Union itself.

还有，既然英国计划在两年左右退出欧盟，梅有必要向英国人表明，除欧洲外，他们在世界上还有些铁杆。不考虑欧盟本身，美国已成为英国最大的贸易伙伴。

Having put such store into being the first foreign leader to meet President Trump — Mr. Farage and Arron Banks, UKIP’s main financial backer, have met him several times since the election — Mrs. May is determined to put British-American relations on a more traditional track, as a government-to-government partnership.

梅是第一个会见特朗普总统的外国领导人，她对此倍加重视，梅决心把英美关系置于一种更加传统的轨道上，即政府间的伙伴关系——特朗普参加选举以来，法拉奇和独立党的大金主阿龙·班克斯已和特朗普会晤多次。

But hardly one of equals. Mrs. May “is coming as a supplicant and Trump seems to know this,” Jonathan Freedland, a columnist for The Guardian newspaper, said in an interview.

可毕竟这是一厢情愿。《卫报》专栏作家乔纳森·弗里兰接受采访时表示，梅“是个乞求者，特朗普明白这一点”。

On trade, “she’s eager to do a deal, like a house buyer who has already sold her house and has nowhere to live, and Trump, the real estate man, knows that.”

在贸易问题上，“她渴望做一笔买卖，可她就像一个已经把房子卖掉的人，无处可住，房地产商特朗普心里明白。”

Mrs. May, he said, “is the un-Trump.” Even in “the comparably unglitzy realm of British politics, she is unshowy,” he said. Compared with her predecessor, David Cameron, “she is pretty gray and pallid.” Still, he said, “history shows that personal chemistry does matter.”

他说，梅“和特朗普正好相反”。就算“在英国政坛那种不显山露水的环境中，她也算尤为低调的。”和前任戴维·卡梅伦相比，她显得灰头土脸，了无生气。“历史证明，有脸缘真的很重要。”

Christopher Meyer, a former British ambassador to Washington, said that “they look like the odd couple, but you never know — what’s required is a good working relationship.” John Major and Bill Clinton were also an odd couple, he said — “there was nothing there at all,” and Barack Obama and Gordon Brown never clicked.

前英国驻美大使克里斯托弗·梅尔说，“他们看起来是一对性格迥异的人，但很难讲，他们有必要建立良好的工作关系。”他说，约翰·梅杰和比尔·克林顿也是如此，“这压根没什么了不起”，贝拉克·奥巴马和戈登·布朗从来不合拍。

As a gift to Mr. Trump, Mrs. May is bringing a quaich (pronounced as quake), a two-handled Scottish drinking cup for whisky used to symbolize trust between the giver and recipient. Although intensely proud of his Scottish ancestry, and his Scottish golf courses, Mr. Trump is a teetotaler.

梅送给特朗普的礼物是一个双耳苏格兰威士忌酒杯，象征着赠予者和接受者之间的信任。尽管特朗普为自己的苏格兰血统和苏格兰高尔夫球场倍感骄傲，他毕竟滴酒不沾。

The early meeting is important for Mrs. May, Mr. Meyer said, because “she can put in a British fix on the things that bother us — NATO, Putin, security, trade.”

梅尔认为，早早会晤对梅而言很重要，因为“让我们担忧的那些事，她可以让英国早作打算，如北约、普京、安全和贸易等。”

What has upset the British government is Mr. Trump’s “being nasty to NATO and nice to Putin,” Mr. Meyer said. But after calming words about NATO from Defense Secretary James N. Mattis, praise for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia is less problematic, he said. “But May would like to hear that from the horse’s mouth.”

梅尔说，让英国政府恼火的是特朗普“讨厌北约，亲善普京”。可国防部长詹姆斯·马蒂斯在北约问题上发表安抚性言论后，赞赏俄国总统普京也显得问题不大了。“可梅听特朗普亲口说出来才放心。”

Mrs. May comes with an agenda, her spokeswoman, unidentified under traditional ground rules, said on Wednesday. Her goal is “to meet face to face and establish a personal relationship that leads to an effective, productive working relationship, not just in the interests of the U.K. and the U.S., but facing the many global challenges where we can work together.”

周三，梅的女发言人说，按惯例梅的行程没有公布。她旨在“面对面会晤，建立个人关系，以便建立有效、建设性的工作关系，这不仅有利于英国和美国的利益，面对诸多全球挑战时，也能携手合作。”

Those include, the spokeswoman said, a start on talks for a bilateral trade deal post-Brexit, but also a “frank” discussion of the importance of the NATO alliance, which Mr. Trump has sometimes disparaged; of the European Union (ditto), even though Britain is leaving it; of Russia and its violations of international law in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, “where we’ve taken a strong position” and to which “we will remain committed.”

发言人说，其中包括开始谈判后脱欧时代的双边贸易协议，还将“诚恳”地讨论北约联盟和欧盟的重要性，尽管英国正要脱离欧盟，特朗普有时会贬损两者的重要性；还将谈及俄国和其在克里米亚和乌克兰东部违反国际法何以攸关，梅表示“我们对此立场坚定”，将“继续致力于应对”这个问题。

Asked about Mr. Trump’s more sexist comments, Mrs. May  that “some of the comments that  has made in relation to women are unacceptable, some of those he himself has apologized for.”

谈及特朗普的的性别歧视言论，梅表示“特朗普对女性的有些说法是不能让人接受的，他自己也对其中一些道歉了。”

When she meets Mr. Trump, she said, “I think the biggest statement that will be made about the role of women is the fact that I will be there as a female prime minister.”

她说会见特朗普时，“我认为对女性角色的最大意义在于，作为一个女性首相，我和他会面了。”

Jeremy Shapiro, a former State Department official who is the director of research for the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that Mrs. May had to be careful because Mr. Trump almost never has fights with someone in the room.

欧洲外交理事会研究员、国务院前官员杰雷米·夏皮罗说，梅必须小心谨慎，因为特朗普几乎没在房间里和人打过架。

“Then you think that maybe this isn’t the person I thought he was, but 48 hours later he tweets something and disappoints you,” he said.

他说：“你可能会错以为这不是我之前认为的那种人，可48小时后，他会发几条推文，泼你一盆冷水。”

Mrs. May may be aware that she is a supplicant, Mr. Shapiro said, “but Trump has her boxed up in her domestic politics — the problem of Farage, her need to control the Brexit wing of her party and her need to fashion a Brexit that won’t destroy her prime ministership.”

梅应该明白她是乞求者，夏皮罗说，“可特朗普在英国内政上让她处境尴尬，法拉奇的问题，她要控制党内退欧分子，让退欧不至于毁掉她的首相生涯等等。”

Mr. Trump has made reference to the warm, vital relationship between President Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. “But they were an actual team, they actually worked together, and Trump can’t stand that,” Mr. Shapiro said.

特朗普提到里根总统和撒切尔夫人之间的亲密且重要的关系。“但他们是一个团队的，他们真心携手写作，特朗普受不了这个。”夏皮罗说。

Mr. Freedland said that the Reagan-Thatcher connection mattered, “because there was extra leeway and space for both of them, because of the personal relationship.”

弗里兰表示，里根-撒切尔的关系很重要，“因为两人都有台阶可下，两人个人关系也好。”

The new president, Mr. Shapiro suggested, will see Mrs. May’s desire to meet him first as a sign of weakness. “There’s no way Trump will say it that way face-to-face, but later it will come through in the relationship and in any U.S.-U.K. trade deal,” which he expects will not be particularly favorable to Britain.

夏皮罗指出，新总统认为梅迫切会晤他，这暴露了弱点。“特朗普不会当面说出来，可以后会表现出来，在美英贸易协议中也会如此”，夏皮罗认为这不会对英国特别有利。

For Mr. Trump, he suggested, those leaders who do not ask for early meetings are the ones who show the most strength.

对于特朗普而言，那些不急着和自己会面的领导人最厉害。

Mr. Meyer, the former ambassador, is less concerned. “She’s completely aware of the dangers, and I think she might turn out to be a bit of an iron lady in some of what she says,” he said. “She won’t sound like a supplicant. But getting the balance right between saying all the oleaginous things about the special relationship and saying the things that matter to us will be the key.”

前大使梅尔不怎么担心这一点。“她完全明白危险，我想她有那么点铁娘子的范儿。她不会让自己感觉是个乞求者。一边要说让人反胃的特殊关系，一边要说一些我们认为关键的事，在两者之间取得平衡是最关键的。”

Mrs. May also addressed Republicans in Philadelphia on Thursday at their annual retreat, which Mr. Trump also attended, before meeting him at the White House on Friday afternoon. Then she flies to Ankara, Turkey, for a meeting with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

周四，梅在费城共和党一年一度的聚会上发言，特朗普也参加了，周五下午和她在白宫会晤。她随后会飞往土耳其安卡拉，与埃尔多安总统会晤。

On issues of trade, terrorism, migration, security, NATO and Cyprus, Mrs. May’s spokeswoman said, Turkey, too, “is such an important partner.”

在贸易、旅游、移民、安全、北约和塞浦路斯问题上，梅的发言人表示，土耳其也“是重要的伙伴”。

Mr. Trump has emphasized his affection for Britain and for Brexit by returning a bust of Winston Churchill to the Oval Office.

特朗普强调，自己对英国、对退欧的感情表现在他把丘吉尔的塑像带回白宫。

Mr. Obama’s replacement of the bust by one of Martin Luther King Jr. became an issue in Britain before Brexit, with the current foreign secretary, Boris Johnson,  that Mr. Obama removed the Churchill bust because he “is a symbol of the part-Kenyan president’s ancestral dislike of the British Empire.”

特朗普把丘吉尔的塑像换成了马丁·路德·金，这在退欧前在英国引发波澜，现任外长鲍里斯·约翰逊当时说，奥巴马把丘吉尔换走，因为他“是个半血肯尼亚人，他的祖先讨厌大英帝国”。

Mrs. May sent Mr. Trump a copy of Churchill’s famous  to the American people on Christmas Eve 1941, weeks after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United States into the war.

圣诞节后，梅把丘吉尔1941年平安夜对美国人民的著名演讲复印本送给特朗普，演讲发生在日本偷袭珍珠港把美国拖入战争的数周后。

In her letter, she told Mr. Trump that “the sentiment” Churchill had expressed — “of a sense of unity and fraternal association between the United Kingdom and United States — is just as true today as it has ever been.”

在信中，她告诉特朗普，丘吉尔表达的“情感”，“英国和美国之间的团结友爱，如今和以前一样真切。”

Maybe. Maybe not.

可能如此，也可能并非如此。