特朗普攻击WTO 全球贸易前景堪忧

Birthday parties for international treaties are never raucous affairs. But when old trade hands gathered in the pavilion of Washington’s Ronald Reagan building on a recent evening to celebrate the 70th birthday of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade — the 1947 document that still guides international commerce — the mood was decidedly maudlin.

庆祝国际条约诞生的生日宴会从来都不热闹。但是在最近的一天晚上，当贸易界资深人士汇聚华盛顿罗纳德?里根(Ronald Reagan)大楼的前厅里庆祝《关税与贸易总协定》（General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade，简称GATT）诞生70周年的时候——这份签署于1947年的文件至今指导着国际贸易——众人的情绪显然有些伤感。

“This feels more like a wake than a birthday party,” grumbled one veteran trade negotiator after listening to a procession of speakers extol the virtues of the Gatt and warn of a looming protectionist tide.

在听了一个又一个演讲者赞赏GATT的功绩、并警告一股保护主义浪潮可能扑面而来之后，一位资深贸易谈判代表抱怨称：“这更像是守灵，而非生日宴会。”

The reason, he did not have to add, was sitting just a few blocks away in the White House. A year on from Donald Trump’s election as US president, the populist property tycoon is delivering on his promise to shake up the international system. Viewed from Washington, the future of global trade now seems to be predominantly about ripping up its glorious past.

不用他多说，原因就坐在几个街区外的白宫。唐纳德?特朗普(Donald Trump)当选美国总统一年后，这位民粹主义房地产大亨正在兑现其撼动国际体系的承诺。从华盛顿的视角看，全球贸易的未来现在似乎主要在于抛弃其辉煌的历史。

Soon after taking office in January, Mr Trump pulled the US out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an ambitious pact with Japan and 10 other economies that his predecessor, Barack Obama, painstakingly negotiated as a strategic response to a rising China.

特朗普在今年1月就职后不久就让美国退出了《跨太平洋伙伴关系协定》(Trans-Pacific Partnership，简称TPP)。TPP是他的前任巴拉克?奥巴马(Barack Obama)花费多年时间与日本以及另外10个经济体好不容易谈判达成的雄心勃勃的协定，是针对中国崛起做出的战略回应。

He has demanded a renegotiation both of the 23-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement and of a 2012 deal with South Korea that was meant to help solidify one of Washington’s most delicate and important strategic relationships in Asia. He has made clear that any trading partner with which the US runs a trade deficit — starting with China — should expect a difficult conversation about how to achieve more balanced trade.

他要求重新谈判已实行23年的《北美自由贸易协定》(NAFTA)以及2012年与韩国签署的协议，后者旨在帮助巩固华盛顿在亚洲最为微妙且最为重要的战略关系之一。特朗普明确表示，任何让美国出现贸易逆差的贸易伙伴——首先是中国——都应该预料到会有一场艰难谈判，目的是实现更均衡的贸易。

But Mr Trump has also signalled that he will pursue an even bigger scalp: the World Trade Organization, which as the Gatt’s successor since the 1990s, has acted as the global trade referee. “The WTO was set up for the benefit [of] everybody but us?.?.?.?They have taken advantage of this country like you wouldn’t believe,” Mr Trump told Fox Business in a recent interview. “We lose the lawsuits, almost all of the lawsuits in the WTO.”

但特朗普还表示将会追求更大的战利品：作为上世纪90年代以来GATT的继任者，世界贸易组织(WTO)已经成为全球贸易裁判。特朗普最近在接受福克斯商业频道(Fox Business)采访时表示：“WTO是为了除我们之外的所有人的利益建立起来的……他们以你无法想象的方式占这个国家的便宜。我们输掉了诉讼，几乎所有的WTO官司都输掉了。”

Mr Trump’s view is not borne out in the data, experts point out. The US has won more than 90 per cent of the disputes it has taken to Geneva, though it has lost an almost equal share of the ones filed against it. While it has been frustrated by the institution’s consensual decision-making process, which requires agreement by all 164 members for anything to happen, it has also had a rare ability to shape the debate at the WTO as its dominant member.

专家们指出，根据数据，特朗普的观点是站不住脚的。在美国提交至日内瓦的诉讼中，逾90%都是美国胜诉，尽管在那些美国被诉的案件中，美国败诉的比例也几乎是这么高。尽管对WTO的共识决策过程（要求164个成员国全部同意才能通过决议）感到不满，但作为占据主导地位的成员国，美国拥有影响辩论的罕见能力。

But those facts matter little to an administration that has taken Mr Trump’s election — on the back of an anti-immigrant and anti-trade campaign that drew him enough Rust Belt votes to squeak into office — as an excuse to pursue America’s grievances.

但对于一个将特朗普当选（打着反移民和反贸易旗号的竞选活动，为他拉到足够多的“锈带”选票）视为发泄美国不满的借口的行政当局，这些事实是无关紧要的。

The assault on the WTO, to be fair, is in its early stages and on the ground in Geneva has taken a technocratic form. The US is now blocking appointments for two vacancies on the seven-strong appellate body that ultimately rules in trade disputes, which could kneecap the global trade referee.

公平地说，对世贸组织的攻击还处于早期阶段，而且在日内瓦的第一线只是以技术官僚的人选为形式。美国正在阻止对七人上诉机构的两个空缺职位的任命——该上诉机构负责对贸易纠纷做出最终裁定——这可能让全球贸易裁判机制陷入瘫痪。

A third vacancy looms in December and a fourth in September 2018, which will leave just three adjudicators in place, from China, India and the US.

今年12月还会出现第三个空缺职位，2018年9月会产生第四个空缺职位，这将导致该机构只有3名裁判官，分别来自中国、印度和美国。

A custom of ensuring that the three-person panels that hear appeals do not include anyone from countries involved would make it difficult for the appellate body to rule in cases involving those three countries, effectively neutralising the appellate body.

依照惯例，审理上诉的三人小组不包括相关国家人员，这将让上诉机构很难裁决涉及这三个国家的案件，使其实际上陷入瘫痪。

Just what the US wants to see happen is unclear. But Robert Lighthizer, Mr Trump’s US trade representative, has long expressed his disdain for the WTO’s dispute resolution system.

不清楚美国的愿望到底是什么。但特朗普任命的美国贸易代表罗伯特?莱特希泽(Robert Lighthizer)一直对WTO的争端解决机制嗤之以鼻。

In the 1990s he helped his political mentor, former Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole, push for the creation of a US commission to review WTO decisions that the US lost. One of his ideas would have required the US to consider leaving the body should it wrongfully, in US eyes, lose three WTO rulings in a five-year period.

上世纪90年代，莱特希泽帮助其政治导师、曾经是共和党总统候选人的鲍勃?多尔(Bob Dole)推动成立一个美国委员会来审查美国在WTO输掉的裁决。他提出的一个设想是，如果在五年期间美国在其自己看来被WTO错误地判输三次裁决，美国就得考虑退出这个机构。

In a recent speech, Mr Lighthizer spoke wistfully of the Gatt’s old non-binding dispute resolution system. He also repeated a longstanding US complaint that the WTO’s appellate body had engaged in judicial over-reach and begun to make law rather than simply interpret it.

莱特希泽在最近一次演讲中以怀念的语气谈到了以前GATT的不具约束力的纠纷解决体系。他还重复了美国长期以来的抱怨，即WTO上诉机构逾越司法管辖权，并开始制定（而不是简单地阐释）法律。

“The United States sees numerous examples where the dispute-settlement process over the years has really diminished what we bargained for or imposed obligations that we do not believe we agreed to,” he said.

他说：“美国看到有无数例子显示，多年来这个争端解决程序真的削弱了我方要求的东西，或者让我方承担了我方并不认为自己曾经同意的义务。”

Mr Lighthizer’s criticism of the WTO and the system are broader still. He is now the leading proponent of the increasingly popular view in Washington that the WTO has failed to rein in China, permitting Beijing to game the international trading system in support of its economic rise.

然而，莱特希泽对WTO及其体系的批评更为广泛。他现在是华盛顿一种日益流行的观点的主要鼓吹者，即认为WTO未能约束好中国，使北京方面得以操纵国际贸易体系，以支持本国的经济崛起。

“The sheer scale of [China’s] co-ordinated efforts to develop their economy, to subsidise, to create national champions, to force technology transfer, and to distort markets in China and throughout the world is a threat to the world trading system that is unprecedented,” Mr Lighthizer said. “The WTO and its predecessor, the [Gatt], were not designed to successfully manage mercantilism on this scale.”

莱特希泽表示：“（中国）协调一致的大规模努力，发展经济、提供补贴、打造国家冠军企业、强迫转让技术，以及扭曲中国乃至整个世界的市场，这一切对世界贸易体系是一个史无前例的威胁。当初设计WTO及其前身GATT不是为了成功管理这种规模的重商主义的。”

The Trump administration’s assault on the WTO may be nascent, but it has already drawn concern from defenders of the multilateral system both inside and outside the US.

虽然特朗普政府对WTO的攻击可能还处于早期阶段，但这已经引起了美国国内外多边体制捍卫者的担忧。

EU trade commissioner Cecilia Malmstr?m warned the US stance on the WTO’s dispute settlement body risked “killing the WTO from inside” in a recent Financial Times interview. Days before, Roberto Azevêdo, the WTO’s director-general, issued a similarly gloomy warning. “If we -compromise this pillar, we will be -compromising the system as a whole. There is no doubt about that,” he told the FT.

欧盟贸易专员塞西莉亚?马姆斯特罗姆(Cecilia Malmstr?m)最近在接受英国《金融时报》采访时警告称，美国在WTO争端解决机制上的立场可能会“从内部杀死WTO”。数天前，WTO总干事罗伯托?阿泽维多(Roberto Azevêdo)发出了同样令人沮丧的警告：“如果我们损害这根支柱，我们就是在损害整个系统。这是毋庸置疑的，”他告诉英国《金融时报》。

Bill Brock, who as Reagan’s US trade representative served as Mr Lighthizer’s boss, has a dim view of his former deputy’s assault on a system that was born in the wake of the second world war following the protectionism that exacerbated the Great Depression.

曾在里根政府任美国贸易代表、当时是莱特希泽上司的比尔?布罗克(Bill Brock)不认同他的前副手攻击在二战后缔造的制度——在那之前，保护主义曾加剧上世纪30年代的大萧条。

“We’d seen what [the Smoot Hawley tariff act of 1930] and a tariff war started by the United States could do to destroy the world economy and put us into a 10-year depression that was impossible to recover from without having to go to war,” Mr Brock says. “The insanity of that left a pretty big impression on us.”

“我们见证过（1930年《斯穆特-霍利关税法》(Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act)）和美国发起的关税战争重创世界经济，让我们陷入长达10年、不参加战争就无法复苏的萧条。”布罗克说：“那种愚蠢的行为让我们铭记在心。”

Born in 1995, the WTO created a binding arbiter for trade disputes. “We very much needed that because it was just too easy to get into a tit-for-tat. You hit me with a tariff, I hit you with a bigger one and back and forth,” says Mr Brock. “It was simply a formula for chaos.”

诞生于1995年的WTO创建了一个具有约束力的贸易争端仲裁机构。“我们非常需要它，因为各国很容易陷入一报还一报的状态。你用关税来打击我，我用更高的关税来打击你，如此针锋相对，没完没了。”布罗克说：“那是一种酿成混乱的配方。”

Yet the US is also not alone in expressing concerns about WTO dysfunction.

然而，对WTO功能失常表达担忧的不仅是美国。

Since the 2008 collapse of negotiations in the so-called Doha Round the organisation has struggled to innovate and remain relevant. Importantly, the WTO is only just beginning to tackle the issues raised by digital trade and ecommerce.

在2008年“多哈回合”(Doha Round)谈判失败之后，WTO一直在艰难地创新和保持相关性。重要的是，WTO才刚刚开始应对数字贸易和电子商务带来的问题。

Mr Azevêdo concedes that “the global system has been and will remain a work in progress,” as he told the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington recently. But the Brazilian also adds: “I think it represents the world’s best efforts to keep economic tensions at bay.”

阿泽维多最近在华盛顿对美国外交关系委员会(Council on Foreign Relations)发表讲话时承认，“这个全球体系一直是，也仍将是，‘进展中的工作’”。但这位巴西人也补充道：“我相信它代表了世界为了不使经济紧张加剧而做出的最佳努力。”

If Mr Azevêdo and others cannot convince Donald Trump to buy into that idea, the Gatt’s next major birthday may indeed be marked with a wake.

如果阿泽维多和其他人无法说服唐纳德?特朗普接受这个观点，我们可能真的要用守灵来纪念GATT的下一个重要生日了。