20170121【經濟學人雙語閱讀】特朗普白宮:一國之君

A Trump White House 特朗普白宮

The 45th president 第45任美國總統

What is Donald Trump likely to achieve in power?

特朗普執政將有何作為?

MUCH of the time, argues David Runciman, a British academic, politics matters little to most people. Then, suddenly, it matters all too much. Donald Trump’s term as America’s 45th president, which is due to begin with the inauguration on January 20th, stands to be one of those moments.

英國學者大衛·朗西曼(David Runciman)曾經說過,在大多數時候,對于大多數人而言,政治無關緊要。可轉眼間,它又與每個人息息相關。作為美國第45任總統,唐納德·特朗普將于1月20日正式就任。他走馬上任之日,必是天翻地覆之時。

It is extraordinary how little American voters and the world at large feel they know about what Mr Trump intends. Those who back him are awaiting the biggest shake-up in Washington, DC, in half a century—though their optimism is an act of faith. Those who oppose him are convinced there will be chaos and ruin on an epoch-changing scale—though their despair is guesswork. All that just about everyone can agree on is that Mr Trump promises to be an entirely new sort of American president. The question is, what sort?

不論是美國選民,還是整個世界,誰都不清楚特朗普接下來打算做什么,這可真是絕無僅有了。那些支持特朗普的人們,正翹首企盼華盛頓半個世紀以來的最大變動——然而他們的樂觀不過是信仰使然。而反對他的人們則堅信,將來天下大亂、覆巢毀卵之程度定為今世罕見——然而他們的絕望不過是臆測假想。不過,人人都同意一點,特朗普必定是一位與眾不同的美國總統。而問題是,他的不同屬于哪一種?

Inside the West Wig?

白宮風云

You may be tempted to conclude that it is simply too soon to tell. But there is enough information—from the campaign, the months since his victory and his life as a property developer and entertainer—to take a view of what kind of person Mr Trump is and how he means to fill the office first occupied by George Washington. There is also evidence from the team he has picked, which includes a mix of wealthy businessmen, generals and Republican activists (seeBriefing).

也許你會說,現在談這些為時尚早。但是,從特朗普參加競選,到勝選后的數月,乃至他作為房地產開發商和娛樂大亨的人生,已經充分說明了他是一個怎樣的人,以及他打算在當年喬治·華盛頓工作過的辦公室里做些什么。他欽點的白宮團隊清一色由商業富豪、軍事將領及共和黨骨干組成,管中窺豹,可見一斑。

For sure, Mr Trump is changeable. He will tell theNew York Timesthat climate change is man-made in one breath and promise coal country that he will reopen its mines in the next. But that does not mean, as some suggest, that you must always shut out what the president says and wait to see what he does.

誠然,特朗普是善變的。他上一秒剛對《紐約時報》表示氣候變化是人為造成的,下一秒就答應煤炭大國,美國將重啟煤礦生產。然而,這并不代表你必須像某些人說的那樣,對于這位新總統,莫要聽其言,只能觀其行。

When a president speaks, no easy distinction is to be made between word and deed. When Mr Trump says that NATO is obsolete, as he did to two European journalists last week, he makes its obsolescence more likely, even if he takes no action. Moreover, Mr Trump has long held certain beliefs and attitudes that sketch out the lines of a possible presidency. They suggest that the almost boundless Trumpian optimism on display among American businesspeople deserves to be tempered by fears about trade protection and geopolitics, as well as questions about how Mr Trump will run his administration.

身為總統,講話時,是不該在言行一致問題上輕易留人口實的。上周,當特朗普對兩名歐洲記者說“北約已然過時”的時候,他未采取任何行動,就已讓其“過時”的可能性變得更大。此外,特朗普一直堅持的某些看法和態度,已經勾勒出其就職總統后的大致線路了。也就是說,美國商人們漫無邊際的特朗普式樂觀主義不能太過了,對貿易保護和地緣政治的擔憂、以及對特朗普政府執政方式的質疑,都理應讓這種樂觀降降溫。

Start with the optimism. Since November’s election the S&P500 index is up by 6%, to reach record highs. Surveys show that business confidence has soared. Both reflect hopes that Mr Trump will cut corporate taxes, leading companies to bring foreign profits back home. A boom in domestic spending should follow which, combined with investment in infrastructure and a programme of deregulation, will lift the economy and boost wages.

先說樂觀情緒。自從11月特朗普勝選以來,美國股市標準普爾500指數上漲了6%,達到歷史高點。研究顯示,公司信心顯著回升。兩種跡象均表明,人們對特朗普寄予了厚望,期待他通過減稅政策,引領公司將國外利潤帶回到國內來。緊隨其后的是加大國內財政支出,基礎設施投資與減政計劃并舉,從而提振經濟并推動工資上漲。

Done well, tax reform would confer lasting benefits (seeFree exchange), as would a thoughtful and carefully designed programme of infrastructure investment and deregulation. But if such programmes are poorly executed, there is the risk of a sugar-rush as capital chases opportunities that do little to enhance the productive potential of the economy.

干得好的話,稅務改革將帶來持久好處,思慮周全、精心設計的基礎設施投資方案和減政計劃亦是如此。但是,一旦這些項目執行不力,則有“三分鐘熱度”的風險,因為資本所追逐的機會,是無助于鞏固經濟生產潛力的。

That is not the only danger. If prices start to rise faster, pressure will mount on the Federal Reserve to increase interest rates. The dollar will soar and countries that have amassed large dollar debts, many of them emerging markets, may well buckle. One way or another, any resulting instability will blow back into America. If the Trump administration reacts to widening trade deficits with extra tariffs and non-tariff barriers, then the instability will only be exacerbated. Should Mr Trump right from the start set out to engage foreign exporters from countries such as China, Germany and Mexico in a conflict over trade, he would do grave harm to the global regime that America itself created after the second world war.

而這并非唯一風險。一旦物價開始飛漲,美聯儲的加息壓力就會增大。于是乎,美元走強,那些持有巨額美債的國家會苦不堪言,而他們當中,大部分都是新興市場國家。無論以何種方式,由此產生的不穩定因素都會反過來影響美國。面對不斷擴大的貿易赤字、高額關稅和非關稅壁壘,如果特朗普政府采取行動,勢必會讓這些不穩定因素愈發激化。倘若特朗普一開始就將中國、德國、墨西哥等外國進口商卷入貿易沖突當中,那么二戰之后美國一手打造的全球體制將會遭受重創。

Just as Mr Trump underestimates the fragility of the global economic system, so too does he misread geopolitics. Even before taking office, Mr Trump has hacked away at the decades-old, largely bipartisan cloth of American foreign policy. He has casually disparaged the value of the European Union, which his predecessors always nurtured as a source of stability. He has compared Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor and the closest of allies, unfavourably to Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president and an old foe. He has savaged Mexico, whose prosperity and goodwill matter greatly to America’s southern states. And, most recklessly, he has begun to pull apart America’s carefully stitched dealings with the rising superpower, China—imperilling the most important bilateral relationship of all.

特朗普不僅低估了全球經濟體制的脆弱性,還對地緣政治產生了誤讀。還沒上任,他就撕開了民主黨和共和黨沿用了幾十年之久的外交政策的遮羞布。美國歷任總統將歐盟的價值視作穩定的源泉,一直悉心呵護,而特朗普卻予以蔑視。德國總理默克爾是美國最親密的盟友,而特朗普卻將默克爾與美國的宿敵、俄羅斯總統普京相提并論。他對墨西哥猛烈抨擊,而墨西哥的繁榮和友好對于美國南部各州而言至關重要。而最不過腦子的,是他已經對美國苦心經營的中美關系開始了破壞,而中國是一個正在崛起的超級大國,中美關系是所有雙邊關系當中的重中之重。

The idea running through Mr Trump’s diplomacy is that relations between states follow the art of the deal. Mr Trump acts as if he can get what he wants from sovereign states by picking fights that he is then willing to settle—at a price, naturally. His mistake is to think that countries are like businesses. In fact, America cannot walk away from China in search of another superpower to deal with over the South China Sea. Doubts that have been sown cannot be uprooted, as if the game had all along been a harmless exercise in price discovery. Alliances that take decades to build can be weakened in months.

特朗普的外交政策所貫徹的思想是:國與國的關系遵循的是交易的藝術。特朗普似乎認為,通過挑起他樂于解決的那些爭端,他就可以從其他主權國家那里得到自己想要的東西,所以才有了那些所作所為。而他的錯誤在于,把國家當成了公司。實際上,要想尋找另一個大國來處理中國南海問題,美國就不可能繞開中國。懷疑的種子一旦播下,就無法根除,就像在價格發現過程中,博弈將會貫穿始終一樣,只不過懷疑會帶來危害,而博弈則不會。同盟關系的建立需要耗費幾十年時間,而削弱只需短短幾個月。

Dealings between sovereign states tend towards anarchy—because, ultimately, there is no global government to impose order and no means of coercion but war. For as long as Mr Trump is unravelling the order that America created, and from which it gains so much, he is getting his country a terrible deal.

主權國家之間的交易極有可能導致混亂,因為,最終不會有一個全球政府來維持公道,所以除了開戰,別無他法。特朗普正在瓦解美國一手打造的世界秩序,而這個秩序對美國有萬般好處,而他給美國拉來的這單生意簡直糟糕透頂。

Hair Force One

?普軍一號

So troubling is this prospect that it raises one further question. How will Mr Trump’s White House work? On the one hand you have party stalwarts, including the vice-president, Mike Pence; the chief of staff, Reince Priebus; and congressional Republicans, led by Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell. On the other are the agitators—particularly Steve Bannon, Peter Navarro and Michael Flynn. The titanic struggle between normal politics and insurgency, mediated by Mr Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, and son-in-law,Jared Kushner, will determine just how revolutionary this presidency is.

未來麻煩不斷,還將產生新的問題。特朗普的白宮該怎么運轉?一方面,他有堅定的共和黨擁護者,副總統彭斯、共和黨主席普利巴斯、還有Paul Ryan、Mitch McConnell等人為首的共和黨國會議員。而另一方面,也不乏煽風點火之輩,尤其是Steve Bannon(譯者注:特朗普的首席策略師及高級顧問)、Peter Navarro(譯者注:特朗普的白宮國家貿易委員會主席)和Michael Flynn(譯者注:特朗普的國家安全顧問)。在循規蹈矩與標新立異的政治路線之間,會有一場曠世較量,特朗普的女兒伊萬卡和女婿庫斯納會從中調停,其結果將決定此屆總統任期究竟能帶來多大的顛覆。

As Mr Trump assumes power, the world is on edge. From the Oval Office, presidents can do a modest amount of good. Sadly, they can also do immense harm.

隨著特朗普的就任,世界變得不知所措了。身在白宮,總統既可以勵精圖治,亦能夠禍亂朝綱。

原文出處:經濟學人網站

譯者:linda10030

本譯文僅供個人研習、欣賞語言之用,謝絕任何轉載及用于任何商業用途。本譯文所涉法律后果均由本人承擔。本人同意簡書平臺在接獲有關著作權人的通知后,刪除文章。

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