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“经济史上规模最大的贸易战”将如何影响世界

2018-07-10来源:和谐英语

It’s official: The United States and China are in a trade war after the Trump administration imposed tariffs at 12:01 a.m. Friday on $34 billion worth of Chinese products.

美中贸易战正式开始了:特朗普政府在周五12点01分对价值340亿美元的中国产品加征关税后,美中贸易战正式打响。

Beijing immediately retaliated with its own penalties. The Chinese government is targeting a range of American products with tariffs, including pork, soybeans and automobiles.

北京方面立即采取措施给予回击。中国政府针对包括猪肉、大豆和汽车在内的一系列美国产品征收了关税。

The prospect of rising costs for imports is expected to impact businesses and consumers alike. The United States has also imposed tariffs on imported steel, aluminum, solar panels and washing machines from countries like Canada, Mexico, the European Union and Japan.

美国还对进口自加拿大、墨西哥、欧盟和日本等国的钢铁、铝制品、太阳能电池板和洗衣机征收关税。预计进口成本上升将对企业和消费者产生影响。

For now, it is unclear how — or whether — the trade war might conclude. On Friday, China’s, Ministry of Commerce said the United States “has launched the biggest trade war in economic history so far,” and President Trump on Thursday continued to threaten Beijing with escalating tariffs on as much as $450 billion worth of Chinese goods.

目前尚不清楚贸易战可能会如何结束——或者是否会结束。周五,中国商务部表示,美国“发动了迄今为止经济史上规模最大的贸易战”,特朗普总统周四继续威胁北京,对中国商品征收的关税将逐步升级,最终对价值高达4500亿美元的商品征收关税。

With its own tariffs on American goods, China would join other countries that have retaliated against Mr. Trump’s trade measures, bringing the total value of affected American exports to about $75 billion by the end of the week. That is still a small fraction of the $1.55 trillion of goods the United States exported last year, but in some industries, the pain is becoming intense.

中国对美国商品加征关税,中国将加入对特朗普的贸易措施实施报复的其他国家的行列,令受影响的美国出口商品总值于本周末达到约750亿美元。这依然只相当于美国去年出口的1.55万亿美元商品的一小部分,但在某些行业,这种痛苦正在愈演愈烈。

The tariffs on China, the world’s largest manufacturing hub, affect a much larger share of products and a greater percentage of companies that rely on global supply chains, potentially hurting American companies even more than the Chinese firms the Trump administration is targeting. Research by Mary Lovely and Yang Liang of Syracuse University shows that in the field of computer and electronics products, for example, non-Chinese multinational corporations operating in China supply 87 percent of the products that will be affected by tariffs, while Chinese firms send only 13 percent.

中国是全球最大的制造业中心,对其征收的关税影响了更大的产品份额,以及更多依赖全球供应链的公司,这对美国公司的伤害,甚至可能超过特朗普政府所针对的中国公司。例如,雪城大学(Syracuse University)的玛丽.洛夫利(Mary Lovely)和梁扬(音)的研究表明,在计算机和电子产品领域,在中国经营的非中国跨国企业提供87%将受关税影响的产品,而中国企业仅提供13%的产品。

A 2011 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco showed that, for every dollar spent on an item labeled “Made in China,” 55 cents went for services produced in the United States. The risks that a trade war posed to the economy was a substantial topic of discussion when Fed policymakers met three weeks ago, according to minutes of the meeting released Thursday.

旧金山联邦储备银行2011年的一项研究显示,每消费一美元标有“中国制造”的物品,就会有55美分流入美国生产的服务中。周四公布的会议纪要显示,三周前,美联储政策制定者会面时,贸易战对经济构成的风险是一个重要议题。

Most Fed officials at the table “noted that uncertainty and risks had intensified,” and that tariffs and other trade measures “could have negative effects on business sentiment and investment spending.”

大多数出席会议的美联储官员“注意到不确定性和风险加剧了”,并认为关税和其他贸易措施“可能对商业信心和投资支出产生负面影响”。

As of Friday morning, companies like Husco International, a Wisconsin-based manufacturing company that makes parts for companies like Ford, General Motors, Caterpillar and John Deere, now face a 25 percent increase on a variety of parts imported from China. Austin Ramirez, Husco International’s chief executive, said that increase would immediately put him and other American manufacturers at a disadvantage to competitors abroad.“The people it helps most of all are my competitors in Germany and Japan, who also have large parts of their supply chain in Asia but don’t have these tariffs,” he said.

制造公司哈斯科国际(Husco International)总部位于威斯康星州,为福特(Ford)、通用汽车(General Motors)、卡特彼勒公司(Caterpillar)和美国迪尔公司(John Deere)等生产零件。截至周五上午,像这样的公司从中国进口的各种零件价格上涨了25%。哈斯科国际的首席执行官奥斯汀·拉米雷斯(Austin Ramirez)表示,这一增长将立即让他和其他美国制造商面对外国竞争对手时处于劣势。“但这对我在德国和日本的竞争对手帮助最大,他们也有很大一部分供应链在亚洲,但没有这些关税,”他说。

The Trump administration drafted its initial tariff list to spare consumers, and many of the products that American families purchase from China, like flat-screen TVs and shoes, are not directly hit on Friday. But American companies that depend on Chinese products are expected to feel the pinch, given the tariffs focus heavily on the kind of intermediate inputs and capital equipment that businesses purchase and ultimately sell both in the United States and abroad.

特朗普政府最初拟定的关税清单试图让消费者不受影响,确实美国家庭从中国购买的如平板电视和鞋子等诸多产品,都没有在周五受到直接打击。但由于关税主要集中在企业购买并最终在美国和海外销售的中间投入和资本设备上,因此预计依赖中国产品的美国公司会感受到经济压力。

Similarly, China has become a key market for brands such as Apple, Nike, Starbucks and General Motors. Consumer boycotts have proven effective in Beijing’s earlier disputes with South Korea, Japan and the Philippines. But targeting American goods could be trickier. The iPhones, Chevrolets and other goods that American companies sell in China are often made in China, and by Chinese workers.

同样,中国已成为苹果、耐克、星巴克和通用汽车等品牌的主要市场。在北京早些时候与韩国、日本和菲律宾的纠纷中,消费者抵制被证明是有效的。但在针对美国商品时可能会更棘手。美国公司在中国销售的iPhone、雪佛兰和其他商品通常是在中国生产的,也是由中国工人生产的。

Also, health and hygiene concerns have led China’s increasingly well-off shoppers to prefer food imported from the United States or elsewhere.

此外,健康和卫生问题导致中国日益富裕的购物者更青睐从美国或其他地方进口的食品。

Still, some consumers said they could imagine making do without iPhones or American cars as a way to strike back against Washington.

尽管如此,一些消费者表示,他们可以想象,不用苹果手机或购买美国汽车,不失为反击华盛顿的一种方法。

“Of course I want China to fight back,” said Cathy Yuan, 32, who was shopping at an upscale Shanghai supermarket on Friday. “We are defending our rights as a nation.”

“我当然支持中国反击,”32岁的凯茜·袁( Cathy Yuan)说,周五时她正在一家上海高档超市购物。“我们正在维护我们国家的权利。”