双语阅读丨贸易之灾
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与才华于一身的良心小编。
“中美贸易战”的话题最近十分火热，引起多方探讨。今天这篇双语阅读，和M君一起，看看外媒是怎么看待贸易战的吧！
The threat to world trade
贸易之灾
The rules-based system is in grave danger
贸易规则体系面临巨大挑战
DONALD TRUMP is hardly the first American president to slap unilateral tariffs on imports. Every inhabitant of the Oval Office since Jimmy Carter has imposed some kind of protectionist curbs on trade, often on steel. Nor will Mr Trump’s vow to put 25% tariffs on steel and 10% on aluminium by themselves wreck the economy: they account for 2% of last year’s $2.4trn of goods imports, or 0.2% of GDP. If this were the extent of Mr Trump’s protectionism, it would simply be an act of senseless self-harm. In fact, it is a potential disaster—both for America and for the world economy.
唐纳德·特朗普并不是首位提高单边进口关税的美国总统。自吉米·卡特实行贸易保护主义限制手段后，白宫的主人们就时常在钢铁上打主意。特朗普政府决定对钢铁和铝分别加征25％和10％的关税，此举破坏了经济发展：钢铁为去年2.4万亿美元进口额贡献多达2%，或占GDP的0.2%。如果特朗普政府真要实行这样的贸易保护手段，那无异于是自残。事实上，这是美国与世界经济的灾难。
As yet it is unclear exactly what Mr Trump will do. But the omens are bad. Unlike his predecessors, Mr Trump is a long-standing sceptic of free trade. He has sneered at the multilateral trading system, which he sees as a bad deal for America. His administration is chaotic, and Gary Cohn’s ominous decision on March 6th to resign as the president’s chief economic adviser deprives the White House of a rare free-trader, signalling that it has fallen into protectionist hands. Not since its inception at the end of the second world war has the global trading system faced such danger.
目前还不清楚特朗普政府打算如何做。但有不太好的预兆。不像他的前任，特朗普一直以来都质疑自由贸易。他讥讽多边贸易体系让美国陷入不利的贸易中。且特朗普政府的管理部门极其混乱。自3月6号科恩决定辞去首席经济顾问一职后，白宫就再无自由贸易主义者了，这意味着贸易保护主义者已完全掌权。这次是第二次世界大战以来，最为严重的一次全球贸易体系危机。
Rough trade
艰难的贸易
This danger has several dimensions. One is the risk of tit-for-tat escalation. After the EU said it would retaliate with sanctions on American goods, including bourbon and Harley-Davidson motorbikes, Mr Trump threatened exports of European cars.
这种危机体现在几个方面。一是有可能出现以牙还牙的升级报复。欧盟声称将对美国商品（包括波本威士忌和哈雷摩托车）报复以贸易制裁，紧接着美国又威胁报复欧盟的汽车出口。
The second danger springs from Mr Trump’s rationale. The tariffs are based on a little-used law that lets a president protect industry on grounds of national security. That excuse is self-evidently spurious. Most of America’s imports of steel come from Canada, the European Union, Mexico and South Korea, America’s allies. Canada and Mexico look set to be temporarily excluded—but only because Mr Trump wants leverage in his renegotiation of the North American Free-Trade Agreement, which has nothing to do with national security. Mr Trump is setting a precedent that other countries are sure to exploit to protect their own producers, just as spuriously.
第二，特朗普的贸易理论。他的关税政策主张以一部鲜少使用的法律为依据，并借此以国家安全为由来实施贸易保护。可这“理由”明显站不住脚。美国的进口钢铁大多源于其盟友加拿大，欧盟，墨西哥和韩国。加拿大和墨西哥暂时不包括在（加征关税）内--但这仅是因为特朗普在北美自由贸易协定谈判中获得影响力，也与维护国家安全并无联系。 既然特朗普政府打响了贸易保护战的头枪，那么其他国家势必同样会以“国家安全”为由进行反击，保护他们本国生产者。
It is not clear whether other countries can respond legally when national security is invoked in this way. This puts the World Trade Organisation (WTO) into a rat trap. Either Mr Trump will provoke a free-for-all of recrimination and retaliation that the WTO’s courts cannot adjudicate, or the courts will second-guess America’s national-security needs, in which case Mr Trump may storm out of the organisation altogether.
目前其他国家是否会合法回应特朗普政府加税措施还尚不清晰。WTO陷入了困境，最终要么是无法调停相互攻讦的贸易混战，要么是事后批评美国的利己主义，后者可能会刺激美国愤然退出WTO。
Mr Trump has lobbed his grenade as the WTO is already under strain. The collapse of the Doha round of trade talks in 2015, after14 fruitless years, put needed reforms on hold indefinitely. Disputes that might have been swept into a new trade round have fallen to the WTO’s dispute-resolution machinery, which is too slow and too frail to carry the burden. The WTO has not kept pace with economic change. Investment is increasingly tied up in intangcibles, such as patents and copyright, rather than physical assets, such as steel mills. Rules drafted for rich, market-led economies cannot always police state capitalism. The implicit subsidies China gives its producers were a cause of global gluts in industrial metals. No wonder that the world’s second-biggest economy has been the focus of so much anger.
自特朗普政府放言加征关税后，WTO便一直处于紧张状态。多哈贸易谈判历时14年，最终无果，因而迫在眉睫的改革只得无限期搁置。新一轮贸易谈判的争论焦点落到WTO的争端协调机制上，各国认为这种机制生效迟缓，不堪重任。WTO力求与经济转变同步，增加无形资产投资，例如专利和版权，减少有形资产投资，例如钢铁公司。处于市场领导地位、富裕经济体起草的条例一旦涉及国家资本主义，就会时而失效。中国政府给予工业金属行业隐性补贴是全球贸易过剩的一大原因。难怪中国这世界第二大经济体会是美国政府恼怒的对象。
What ever the WTO’s problems, it would be a tragedy to undermine it. If America pursues a mercantilist trade policy in defiance of the global trading system, other countries are bound to follow. That might not lead to an immediate collapse of the WTO, but it would gradually erode one of the foundations of the globalised economy.
无论WTO面临怎样的难题，都不能够削弱它在处理国际贸易问题上的作用。如果美国一意孤行地罔顾国际贸易体系规则，继续推行重商主义国贸政策的话，其他国家必会反击。尽管WTO并不会因此而轰然崩溃，但长此以往就会动摇经济全球化的基石。
Everyone would suffer. Mr Trump seems to think trade is a zero-sum affair, in which a deficit is a sign of a bad deal. But the vast improvement in living standards after the second world war went hand in hand with a rapid expansion in world trade over eight trade rounds, each of which lowered barriers. Imports are in fact welcome, because they benefit consumers and spur producers to specialise in what they do best.
各方都会受损。特朗普认为贸易是场零和博弈， 贸易赤字就意味着不利。但在二战后，八轮贸易活动均降低了壁垒，随后世界贸易总额的大幅增长，且伴随着生活水平的极大改善。进口商品会增进消费者福利并激励生产者专业化分工，因此它是很受欢迎的。
Without the WTO, cross-border trade would continue—it is unstoppable—but the lack of norms and procedures would leave disputes to escalate. The fewer the rules, the more scope for mercantilist mischief and backsliding. Trade policy could be captured by special interests. Military power would hold greater sway in trade disputes than economic fair play. Transnational investment could drain away. As a vast continental economy, America would lose less from this than other countries. It would nonetheless lose a lot, including a pillar of the system that has underpinned its post-war political influence.
即便没有WTO，跨境贸易也会一直进行——但规则的缺失可能使得各国贸易争端升级。贸易规则越是不健全，就越是容易产生重商主义错误和贸易倒退。贸易政策的制定权将掌握在特殊利益集团手中。军事力量将取代市场公平竞争成为解决贸易争端的强力手段。跨国投资也将流失。美国是市场广阔的大陆经济体，因而它的贸易损失会少于其他国家；可即便如此，美国依旧会遭受无比庞大的经济损失，更会失去在二战后建立的政治影响力。
How should the world get out of this bind? Even as Mr Trump behaves with astonishing irresponsibility, others must keep their heads. Some may impose limited retaliation—that, after all, is how to treat bullies, and the threat to local manufactures will strengthen the hand of Republicans pressing Mr Trump to relent. But such action must be proportionate and limited. A tit-for-tat war with America would be disastrous.
该如何走出这个窘境呢？即使连美国都表现出令人咋舌的不负责任态度，其他国家也必须保持冷静。 一些国家可能会对美国实施限制性报复——毕竟是在与霸权斗争;这些报复性举措将损害美国生产商的利益，于是共和党就会向特朗普政府施压。但要注意这种报复需适合而止，毕竟与美国争锋相对打贸易战将引发灾难。
The more important task is to shore up support for trade. It would be comforting to think there is global backing to fix the WTO. But just now, there is not. The only new trade deals on offer are regional, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), an 11-country pact signed this week that sets out to be a blueprint for trade modernisation. Although Mr Trump abandoned it, he has hinted he may reconsider, which would be a start.
当下更重要的任务是大力支持国际贸易。若是全球共同努力，修复WTO贸易规则，想必会颇得欣慰。但目前情况显然不容乐观，现在仅有地区性的新型贸易优惠协定，比如“跨太平洋伙伴关系(TPP)”。11国于本周签订了该协定，并开启了贸易现代化进程。虽说特朗普政府拒绝承认该协定，不过他也暗示他会重新考虑，这是贸易现代化的良好开端。
The best way to help the WTO would be for its other members to co-ordinate any action, including bringing in a WTO complaint about Mr Trump’s tariffs. Even though that may burden the WTO’s court, it would be a vote of confidence in the idea that the global economy should be governed by rules.
帮助WTO恢复秩序的最好方法是组织内除美国外的成员国开展联合行动，比如共同递交对特朗普政府加征关税举措的WTO申诉。尽管此举会加重WTO法庭的负担，但它是维护全球贸易规则有力支持。
The world is a long way from the 1930s, thank goodness. Yet ignorance and complacency have put the trading system in grave danger. Free-traders need to recognise that the WTO can help keep markets open in the face of protectionist lobbying, at home and abroad. It is vital they make the intellectual case for rules-based trade. That will not be easy. For the first time in decades, their biggest foe is the man in the Oval Office.
虽然美国的狂傲无知之举让贸易体系陷入艰难困境，值得庆幸的是，现在的世界经济状况要比19世纪30年代好许多。自由贸易者需要认识到，WTO仍然可以让市场继续保持开放，对抗国内国外大放厥词的贸易保护主义者。他们要用智慧捍卫贸易规则。这并不容易。这是几十年来的首次，自由贸易主义的头号敌人正是白宫的主人。
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