The dangers of Donald Trump’s instinct for dealmaking
《唐纳德·特朗普交易本能的危险》

EVEN BEFORE President Donald Trump declared a trade war on the whole world, this was a noisy time in global power politics. The din of armed conflict is unrelenting in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. In Asia, Chinese sabre-rattling grows ever louder. Every other week, or so it seems to China’s anxious neighbours, the People’s Liberation Army sends fighter jets and warships to encircle the island of Taiwan, or to stage shows of force in contested seas to China’s east and south. Relishing his role as commander-in-chief of the most potent armed forces in history, Mr Trump makes threats to destroy utterly opponents who defy his demands, from Houthi insurgents disrupting shipping in the Red Sea to drug-smuggling cartels in Mexico.
甚至在特朗普总统宣布对全世界开战之前，全球权力政治就已经非常嘈杂。欧洲、中东和非洲的武装冲突声不绝于耳。而在亚洲，中国的军事挑衅声也越来越响亮。对于中国的邻国来说，几乎每隔两周，中国人民解放军就会派出战斗机和军舰包围台湾岛，或者在东海和南海争议海域进行炫耀武力的演习。特朗普总统乐于扮演历史上最强大武装力量的指挥官角色，他威胁要彻底摧毁那些不顺从他要求的对手，从红海扰乱航运的胡塞武装到墨西哥的毒品走私团伙。

Other leaders have no choice but to engage with the threats of tariffs that Mr Trump has unleashed on each of their economies, like an old heavyweight challenging everyone he sees to a fight at the same time. His self-harming trade war is now the most urgent crisis in a world filled with clamorous disorder.
其他领导人不得不应对特朗普对各自经济施加的关税威胁，就像一位老拳王同时向所有人发起挑战。他自伤的贸易战争现在是充满喧嚣和混乱的世界中最为紧迫的危机。

Strikingly, though, some of the shrewdest officials and analysts in such capitals as Beijing, Brussels and Washington are focused on a challenge to the established world order that is harder to see or hear. To them, the most disruptive force in geopolitics today is Mr Trump’s apparent desire to huddle with other world leaders, and quietly carve up the world together.
然而，来自北京、布鲁塞尔和华盛顿等首都的一些最精明的官员和分析家却将注意力集中在一种更难察觉或听到的挑战上。对他们而言，当今地缘政治中最具破坏性的力量是特朗普似乎希望与世界各国领导人会面，并悄悄地共同划分世界。

His actual dealmaking record is mixed. Allied governments worry that Mr Trump is growing impatient with slow progress in talks to end the war in Ukraine. Some fear he could walk away one day, leaving the conflict unresolved, and Ukraine without some forms of intelligence support that it needs to fight effectively. Mr Trump blames Ukraine for starting the war and for dragging it out. From time to time, individual European leaders catch Mr Trump’s ear and convince him that Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, is the one playing for time, in a way that is disrespectful to America. Finland’s president, Alexander Stubb, pulled off just such a useful meeting with Mr Trump over a golf game in Florida on March 29th. The next day America’s president duly threatened to punish Russian foot-dragging with sanctions.
他的实际交易记录参差不齐。盟国政府担心特朗普对结束乌克兰战争的谈判进展缓慢感到不耐烦。有人担心他有一天可能会退出谈判，导致冲突无法解决，乌克兰也无法获得其有效作战所需的某些情报支持。特朗普指责乌克兰挑起战争并拖延战争。不时有欧洲领导人成功说服特朗普，认为俄罗斯总统普京在玩时间游戏，这在某种程度上是对美国的不尊重。芬兰总统亚历山大·斯图布就在 3 月 29 日在佛罗里达州的一场高尔夫比赛中成功说服了特朗普。第二天，美国总统果然威胁要因俄罗斯拖延而对其实施制裁。

But such moments of clarity are rare in the second Trump administration, which insiders compare to the court of an ageing and mercurial king. Far more than in his first term, Mr Trump has surrounded himself with loyalists. Multiple envoys are appointed to handle important subjects. They then compete to impose deals, through might rather than right, on foreign powers, in line with what they suppose are his wishes. There are conventional conservatives in Mr Trump’s team who might oppose a bad peace deal for Ukraine that rewards Russia for its aggression, such as his national security adviser, Mike Waltz. But Mr Waltz is not expected to keep his job for long. Zealots in Trumpworld are pushing the president to purge his administration of those they call “neocons” bent on war, who are deemed disloyal on the basis of past comments opposing Mr Trump’s America First worldview.
但在特朗普第二任期，这样的清醒时刻却很少出现，外界将其比作一位年迈且善变国王的宫廷。与第一任期相比，特朗普身边聚集了更多的忠诚者。多个特使被任命处理重要事务，他们通过武力而非正义来迫使外国势力接受自己的交易，以符合他们认为特朗普的意愿。特朗普团队中有传统的保守派可能会反对对乌克兰的糟糕和平协议，该协议奖励了俄罗斯的侵略行为，例如他的国家安全顾问迈克·沃尔夫。但沃尔夫预计不会在职位上待很久。特朗普世界中的狂热分子正敦促总统清除那些他们称为“新保守派”的人，这些人被认为因过去反对特朗普的美国优先理念而被视为不忠诚。

If allies are anxious, adversaries such as China see an opportunity. Under its supreme leader, Xi Jinping, China spent the past few years trying to persuade America’s 46th president, Joe Biden, to express support for the “peaceful reunification” of Taiwan with mainland China. Such a statement would mark a dramatic shift in policy, and the Biden administration refused this request. America has no formal defence alliance with Taiwan, a democratic island that China claims as its own. But for decades America has worked to deter China from using force to take the island. Officially, America expects China and Taiwan to resolve their differences “by peaceful means, free from coercion, in a manner acceptable to the people on both sides of the strait”.
如果盟友感到焦虑，对手如中国则看到了机会。在中国最高领导人习近平的领导下，过去几年中国试图说服美国第 46 任总统乔·拜登支持“和平统一”台湾与大陆。这样的声明将标志着政策的重大转变，而拜登政府拒绝了这一请求。美国与台湾没有正式的防务联盟，台湾是一个民主的岛屿，中国声称其为自己的领土。但多年来，美国一直在努力阻止中国使用武力夺取该岛。官方上，美国期望中国和台湾通过和平方式、不使用胁迫手段来解决分歧，这种解决方式对海峡两岸的人民都是可以接受的。

Freedom, for a hill of beans
自由，价值微乎其微

In the view of a well-connected Chinese expert on relations with America, the time is ripe to change this language, playing on Mr Trump’s often-stated distaste for war. China has intensively studied each recorded instance of Mr Trump expressing impatience with the notion that Taiwan, an island of 24m people with relatively weak armed forces, could possibly defend itself against China, a superpower of 1.4bn. Chinese officials pay attention whenever Mr Trump expresses anxiety about Taiwan’s dominant role in the manufacture of advanced semiconductors and puts pressure on chipmakers such as TSMC to move their production to America. In the telling of this scholar, America should cut a deal while it still can as the costs to it of defending Taiwan are rising fast. He rehearses the argument that he would like to see his government make: “Reunification has to come, so it is better to make that peaceful than non-peaceful.” If Mr Trump can just openly embrace the idea that unification is Taiwan’s ultimate fate, then China can be “more patient”, he says.
在一位与美国关系密切的中国专家看来，现在是时候改变这种语言了，利用特朗普先生经常表达的对战争的厌恶。中国已经详细研究了特朗普每次表达对台湾这个拥有 2400 万人口、武装力量相对较弱的岛屿可能无法抵御拥有 14 亿人口的超级大国中国的防御能力的不满。每当特朗普表达对台湾在先进半导体制造中占据主导地位的担忧，并对台积电等芯片制造商施压要求将生产转移到美国时，中国官员都会特别关注。这位学者认为，美国应该趁早达成协议，因为其防御台湾的成本正在迅速上升。他重申了他希望政府能够提出的论点：“统一是必然的，所以和平统一比非和平统一更好。”如果特朗普能够公开接受台湾最终统一的想法，那么中国可以“更加耐心”，他说。

In Washington, insiders think it is quite conceivable that such an offer would appeal to Mr Trump. They talk of vicious feuding over China policy among Mr Trump’s appointees in the Pentagon, State Department and national-security agencies, precisely because the president’s true views on China are so unclear. One camp would be ready to accommodate China over Taiwan, believing it is impossible that America would actually fight for the island. Another camp fears that Mr Trump is indeed capable of quietly selling Taiwan out, and is working to thwart this.
在华盛顿，内行人认为这样的提议对特朗普来说是完全可能的。他们谈论的是特朗普在五角大楼、国务院和国家安全机构的任命人员之间关于对华政策的激烈争斗，因为总统对中国的真正看法非常模糊。一个阵营认为可以向中国妥协台湾问题，因为他们认为美国实际上不会为这个岛屿而战。另一个阵营则担心特朗普确实有可能悄悄出卖台湾，并且正在努力阻止这种情况。

Hawks are helped by Mr Trump’s trade war, which has America and China trading threats of tariffs and vows not to give ground. While Mr Trump is angrily focused on trade deficits, China cannot cut a deal giving it Taiwan in exchange for purchases of American soyabeans, as the mordant joke goes in policy circles. If Trumpian bluster subsides, anything could happen. ■
僵硬派人士因特朗普的贸易战而受益，这场贸易战让美国和中国互相威胁加征关税，并誓言不退让。当特朗普愤怒地关注贸易逆差时，正如政策圈里的一句讽刺笑话所说，中国无法通过购买美国大豆来换取台湾。如果特朗普的强硬姿态有所缓和，一切都有可能发生。

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