特朗普会发动贸易战吗
Perhaps the most important among all the many uncertainties surrounding the economic policy of the Trump administration are those related to trade and protection. During the election campaign, the president-elect made blood-curdling promises in this area, and his official campaign documentation was no less strident. If he intends to implement a large part of this agenda in office, the chances of a global trade war would be high.
在围绕特朗普政府经济政策的诸多不确定性中，最重要的或许都跟贸易和保护有关。在竞选期间，这位当选总统在这方面发出了一些把人吓得血液凝固的承诺，而他的官方竞选文档也同样强硬。如果他打算在上任后，把这一议程的大部分付诸实施，那么全球爆发贸易战的可能性很大。
Last week, trade issues moved to centre stage in the transition. The president-elect released a video confirming that America would immediately withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal that had been intended to be the culmination of President Barack Obama’s political and economic pivot towards Asia.
在特朗普当选那周后的第二周，贸易问题成为政府交接中的焦点问题。这位当选总统公布了一份视频，确认了美国将立即退出《跨太平洋伙伴关系协定》(TPP)。人们原本指望TPP将成为巴拉克.奥巴马(Barack Obama)在政治和经济方面转向亚洲战略的巅峰成果。
This was no surprise, since the political supporters of the deal ran for cover during the 2016 elections, but it does mean that any further liberalisation of US trade (including the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the EU) is now dead in the water.
这不令人意外（TPP的政治支持者在2016年大选中都因这个问题受到猛烈抨击、不得不匆忙寻求掩护），但这并不意味着美国进一步贸易自由化（包括与欧盟之间的《跨大西洋贸易与投资伙伴关系协定》(TTIP)）如今已死。
It also provides China with a clear opportunity to take the lead in forming an Asian trading bloc, and they have eagerly stepped up to the plate. None of this will have immediate adverse consequences for global markets. It is an opportunity missed rather than a step backwards.
这也为中国提供了一个领头组建一个亚洲贸易区的明显机会，他们已急切地行动起来了。这些都不会立即对全球市场产生负面影响。只是错过了一个机会，而不是倒退。
The second big development is the rumoured appointment of Wilbur Ross as commerce secretary (see Gillian Tett). Mr Ross is a business person rather than an ideologue on trade. If anything, he seems to be from the supply side wing of the Republican party. The market would vastly prefer this appointment to a feasible alternative such as Peter Navarro, who is an outright hawk on trade relations with China (and, somewhat ironically, the only PhD economist in Trump’s advisory team).
第二大重要动态是，人们传言威尔伯.罗斯(Wilbur Ross)会被任命为商务部长（参见吉莲.邰蒂(Gillian Tett)的文章）。罗斯是个商人，并不来自某个特定的贸易思想派别。如果非要说的话，他似乎来自共和党的供给侧一派。相比其他可行人选（比如在对华贸易关系上持彻底鹰派立场的彼得.纳瓦罗(Peter Navarro)），市场将非常乐见这项任命。（具有讽刺意味的是，纳瓦罗也是特朗普顾问团队中唯一的经济学博士）。
Although Mr Ross clearly believes that the US should be far more assertive in its trade negotiations with other countries, he has played down the likelihood of dramatic initiatives such as Mr Trump’s threat of a 45 per cent tariff on all imports from China. He has also said clearly that “there will be no trade wars”.
罗斯显然认为，美国在与其他国家进行贸易谈判时的立场应当远比目前强硬，但他淡化了一些夸张提议（比如特朗普威胁要对所有中国进口商品征收45%的关税）的可能性。他还明确表示，“不会发生贸易战”。
If this turns out to be the dominant tone of the Trump administration, then the tide of globalisation may not be rolled back very far in the next few years, and the global markets will breathe a huge sigh of relief.
如果这将是特朗普政府的主导性论调，那么在未来几年内，全球化浪潮或许不会倒退得太厉害，而全球市场将长舒一口气。
But can we rely on this? Trump’s victory in the electoral college relied heavily on abnormally high levels of support in the rust belt states. The temptation to “do something” to reward these supporters by punishing those countries that are believed to have caused America’s economic decline – notably China and Mexico – will be hard to resist.
但我们可以指望情况会如此吗？特朗普在选举人团中的胜利，严重依赖那些“锈带州”异常高的支持。“做点儿什么”回报这些支持者、惩罚那些被认为导致了美国经济衰退的国家——主要是中国和墨西哥——的诱惑，将是很难抵制的。
The president has wide-ranging executive authority to introduce trade controls, much of which is hard to challenge through Congress and the courts. Some form of action is inevitable. The question is how severe it will be.
总统在实施贸易管控方面享有广泛的行政权力，其中很多是难以通过国会和法院挑战的。采取某种形式的行动是不可避免的。问题是这种行动会有多么严厉。
At the less disruptive end of the spectrum, the administration could simply expand the activities of the Obama administration in pursuing particular cases of unfair trading practices that are the subject of loud political complaints. US action against Chinese tyre producers in 2009, and Chinese steel exporters in 2016, are example of this approach, which could be widened and pursued much more aggressively, even though it has not been very successful in safeguarding US domestic producers in the past.
在破坏性不那么大的一端，特朗普政府可能只是扩大奥巴马政府的做法：针对不公平贸易活动的个案动手。不公平贸易活动在政治上招致很大怨言。2009年美国起诉中国轮胎生产商、以及2016年起诉中国钢铁出口商，都是这种做法的例子。尽管这种做法过去在保护美国国内生产商方面收效一般，但它可能被扩大，并采取激进得多的方式。
Aggressive action of this sort might be increasingly outside the WTO’s legal framework, but Trump might be willing to push these agreements to the limit, in effect using American buying power to “get a better deal” for his country. This would be noisy, and subject to the risk of retaliation from China, but it would be unlikely to bring down the entire edifice of global free trade – at least, not at first.
这种激进行动或许会越来越多地超出世贸组织(WTO)的法律框架，但特朗普也许有意愿把这些协议推向极致，实际上利用美国的购买力达成“对本国更有利的协议”。这将带来嘈杂声，并面临中国发起报复行动的风险，但这不大可能会推倒全球自由贸易的整座大厦——至少一开始不会。
Nor is it likely to match the political expectations that have been fuelled by the inflammatory language that Trump used during his campaign. It is easy to imagine political pressure building on the White House to live up to its campaign rhetoric on trade. If so, two targets will loom very large: car imports from Mexico, and manufactured goods (especially basic materials and technological products) from China.
这也不可能符合被竞选期间特朗普的煽动性语言推高的政治期望。不难想象到，白宫将面临越来越大的政治压力，要求兑现特朗普竞选时在贸易方面的承诺。如果是这样，将有两个醒目的目标：从墨西哥进口的汽车和从中国进口的制成品（特别是基础材料和技术产品）。
Candidate Trump issued some very concrete threats in these areas, including of course declaring China a currency “manipulator”, imposing a 45 per cent tariff on all Chinese imports into the US and a 35 per cent tariff on Ford car imports from Mexico, and withdrawing from Nafta and the WTO.
在竞选阶段，特朗普在这些领域发出了一些非常具体的威胁，其中显然包括宣布中国为汇率“操纵国”、对美国从中国进口的所有商品征收45%的关税、对进口自墨西哥的福特(Ford)汽车征收35%的关税、以及退出北美自贸协定(Nafta)和WTO。
It is possible that these threats are just a form of bluster, intended to elicit voluntary concessions from the countries concerned, but this could escalate into something far more concerning, especially in the circumstance of a US recession, or a large rise in the dollar, with expanding US trade deficits.
这些威胁可能只是某种形式的威吓，旨在诱导有关国家自愿做出让步，但这可能升级为更令人担心的事态——特别是在美国经济发生衰退或美元大幅上涨，同时美国贸易赤字加大的情况下。
That is what happened during the Reagan years, when a great deal of political pressure was placed on Japan, resulting in “voluntary” restrictions on car exports to the US. The global structure of free trade survived on that occasion, but the markets would certainly start to worry that it might be much worse this time. China would be a much tougher nut for the US to crack than Japan three decades ago.
这就是里根(Reagan)时代发生的事情，当时美国对日本施加了很大的政治压力，导致日本“自愿”限制对美汽车出口。那一次，全球自由贸易结构挺过去了，但市场肯定会开始担心，这次可能会比那次糟得多。对美国而言，中国将是比30年前的日本难磕开得多的坚果。
The next key litmus test in this area will be whether the new administration rapidly labels China as currency manipulator. While this may have been a defensible step a few years ago, almost all economists now agree with the US Treasury’s latest published assessment, to the effect that China meets only one of the three criteria used to define “manipulation”.
贸易领域的下一场关键考验将是，美国新政府是否迅速将中国列为汇率操纵国。虽然在几年前，这么做也许是站得住脚的，但目前几乎所有经济学家都同意美国财政部最新公布的评估结果，即中国只符合“操纵国”的三条界定标准中的一条。
China is running a large trade surplus with the US, but is not recording an excessive current account surplus versus the world as a whole, and is certainly not using foreign exchange intervention to hold the currency down. In fact, the opposite.
中国对美国存在庞大的贸易顺差，但中国相对整个世界的经常账户顺差并不太大，而且肯定没有通过干预汇市来压低汇率。事实上，中国所做的事情与之恰好相反。
Despite this evidence, the Trump campaign documentation baldly states that the president will “instruct the Treasury Secretary to label China as a currency manipulator”. The new Treasury Secretary probably has the legal authority under the 2015 Trade Enforcement Act to change the precise, official definition of “manipulation” to achieve this, without further Congressional approval. In any event, there seem to be Congressional majorities in favour of action on this front.
尽管存在这一证据，特朗普的竞选文档直截了当地表示，特朗普当选后将“指示财政部长将中国列为货币操纵国”。根据2015年的《贸易执法法》(Trade Enforcement Act)，新财长很可能拥有法律权限，能够在不经国会批准的情况下更改“操纵”的精确官方定义。反正，国会中似乎都会有多数议员赞成在这方面采取行动。
If that occurred, it would give the president authority to set in train a process leading to direct trade controls, though there could be time delays and legal challenges. Pending more definitive legal opinion on this, it seems to me that Mr Trump could probably use the 2015 Act or some other legal authority to impose a general US tariff on Chinese imports as the quid pro quo for an undervalued exchange rate.
如果发生这种情况，总统将有权启动一个导致直接贸易管制的程序，尽管可能存在时滞和法律挑战。在没有更确切的法律意见的情况下，我感觉，特朗普可能会使用2015年这份法案或某一其他法律授权，对中国进口商品征收美国普通关税，作为对人民币汇率被低估的惩罚。
That, in turn, could trigger a dangerous trade “war”, in which China devalues further, and the US imposes even higher tariffs. A recent briefing by the Peterson Institute concludes that a full trade war of this type would result in zero GDP growth in the US in 2018-19.
这接下来可能引发一场危险的贸易“战争”——中国让人民币进一步贬值，美国则进一步提高关税。彼得森研究所(Peterson Institute)最近的一份简报认为，这种全面贸易战争将导致美国2018-19年度的国内生产总值(GDP)增长为零。
In the past week, investors have become hopeful that a modicum of sense might prevail on the trade front. But that confidence would rapidly be shattered if the administration recklessly pressed the “manipulator” button against China.
在特朗普当选那周后的第二周，投资者开始寄望于些许理智或许会在贸易领域占据上风。但是，如果美国政府鲁莽地对中国按下“操纵国”按钮，这种信心将很快被打碎。
