特朗普从普京身上学到了什么

While the allegations surrounding President Donald Trump’s shadowy ties to Russia are unsettling, as of yet, no smoking gun has been found. But on at least one issue, Mr Trump and Vladimir Putin, his Russian counterpart, are of a similar mind.

尽管围绕美国总统唐纳德?特朗普(Donald Trump)与俄罗斯存在神秘关系的指控令人不安，但到目前为止还没有发现支持这种说法的确凿证据。不过，特朗普和俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔?普京(Vladimir Putin)至少在一个问题上想法一致。

When it comes to trade, Mr Trump’s approach is very much in line with the practice of Mr Putin’s Russia over the past 17 years. Always willing to use trade as a cudgel or a tool for geopolitical gains, both presidents seem to enthusiastically subordinate economic gains to political ends.

在贸易方面，特朗普的立场与普京领导的俄罗斯在过去17年中的做法非常一致。二人总是愿意用贸易作为获取地缘政治好处的棍棒或工具，似乎热衷于让经济利益从属于政治目的。

However, one need only look at Russia today to see the end result of such policies. Rather than enrich the country, economic nationalism has led Russia to stagnation, a fate which could also befall the US.

然而，人们只需要看看今天的俄罗斯便知道此类政策的最终结果。经济民族主义非但没有使国家富足，反而导致俄罗斯经济陷入停滞，这种命运可能也会降临美国。

Mr Trump has been consistent even before his successful foray into politics in his disdain for free trade in general and multilateral trade deals in particular. Central to this approach is the belief that a country should use all means available to protect its national interest.

特朗普一贯藐视自由贸易、特别是多边贸易协议，从他成功步入政坛之前就是如此。这种立场的核心是相信国家应该利用一切可以利用的手段来保护国家利益。

The president announced at his inauguration that “protection will lead to great prosperity and strength”, while Steve Bannon, his chief adviser, explicitly named this approach “economic nationalism” at his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

特朗普在就职演说上宣称，“保护措施将带来伟大的繁荣和实力”，而其首席顾问史蒂夫?班农(Steve Bannon)在保守派政治行动大会(Conservative Political Action Conference)的演讲中把这种立场明确称做“经济民族主义”。

In earlier interviews, Mr Bannon expanded on this idea, railing against “globalists” who “created a middle class in Asia”, “gutting the American working class”. Peter Navarro, the head of the newly-created National Trade Council, has gone even further and spoken of unwinding international supply chains in order to keep production in the US.

在更早的采访中，班农详细阐述了这种想法，抨击了那些“成就了亚洲中产阶级”、“击垮了美国工人阶级”的“全球主义者”。新成立的国家贸易委员会(National Trade Council)的主席彼得?纳瓦罗(Peter Navarro)甚至更进一步，提出为了让生产留在美国国内应该瓦解国际供应链。

This approach, jarring to the ears of any economist, is also sadly familiar from both history and contemporary practice. One of its main proponents is Mr Putin, who is on record repeatedly supporting economic nationalism and strategic trade policy.

这种立场——在任何经济学家听来都很刺耳——不管从历史还是当代实践来看都可悲地令人耳熟能详。普京就是这种立场的主要支持者之一，他多次公开支持经济民族主义和战略性贸易政策。

President Putin is credited with publishing a dissertation in 1997 touching on these themes. In the paper, he spoke of harnessing the power of industry for the glory of the state, subsidising industry at home to keep domestic prices low and production within a country’s borders.

普京被认为在1997年发表了一篇关于这些主题的论文。在文中，他谈到为了国家的荣耀而利用工业的力量，补贴国内产业以保持国内价格处于低位并让生产留在境内。

To pay for this support, the costs would be passed on to foreign consumers in the form of much higher prices. This worldview has been a justification for the creeping nationalisation of the commanding heights of the Russian economy, above all Gazprom, and also has informed Russia’s indiscriminate use of tariffs, repeatedly breaking treaties as necessary in order to keep official duties high. Such an approach has benefited the non-tradeable sector, mainly extractive industries, while harming tradeables such as agriculture and technology.

为了获取资金提供这种支持，成本被以抬高价格的方式转嫁给外国消费者。这种世界观正是俄罗斯经济中重量级企业、尤其是俄罗斯天然气工业公司(Gazprom)进行国有化的一个原因，也解释了俄罗斯滥用关税、在必要时再三违反条约以保持高额政府税收的做法。这类做法有利于那些非贸易型行业，主要是采掘行业，而损害了农业、技术等贸易型行业。

This is precisely what Messrs Bannon, Trump, Navarro and others in the US administration have been espousing, especially in regards to Mr Bannon’s call for massive infrastructure investments (a key non-tradeable).

这正是美国政府中班农、特朗普、纳瓦罗等人所一直支持的主张，特别是班农呼吁进行大规模的基础设施投资（关键的非贸易型行业）。

Once enacted, however, economic nationalism tends to take on a life of its own. Despite being a member of the World Trade Organisation, Russia has also famously utilised non-tariff barriers such as sanitary regulations and quality control to restrict trade from whomever it was quarrelling with at that moment.

然而，一旦付诸实施，经济民族主义往往就有了自己的生命。尽管属于世界贸易组织(WTO)的成员，但俄罗斯还总爱利用卫生法规和质量控制等非关税壁垒，限制与之爆发争执的国家的对俄贸易。

Tiny states that refuse to kowtow to Moscow’s political directives have been the recipients of Mr Putin’s trade policies, with Moldova and Georgia both suffering bans on their wine due to “pesticides” and Belarus seeing a ban on its dairy products in 2009. In each of these cases, a political dispute, generally involving a turn towards the EU, preceded these sudden quality issues.

拒绝臣服于莫斯科政治指令的小国就会受制于普京的贸易政策，摩尔多瓦和格鲁吉亚都因“杀虫剂”问题而被俄罗斯实施红酒进口禁令，2009年白俄罗斯遭受了乳制品进口禁令。在每一个案例中，各国在突然出现质量问题前都与俄罗斯发生了政治争端——往往涉及那些国家向欧盟示好。

Perhaps the most dramatic use of such instruments is in Ukraine, where Mr Putin used the threat of embargo for years to bring Kiev to heel. After the Euromaidan Revolution in early 2017 and the ouster of Viktor Yanukovich, the Russian-backed president, Russia imposed a series of embargoes culminating in a complete food ban in 2016 and a series of import bans with the EU.

俄罗斯最激烈地采用此类手段的一次是对付乌克兰，普京以威胁实施多年贸易禁运来逼基辅就范。在2017年初乌克兰革命以及俄罗斯支持的乌克兰前总统维克托?亚努科维奇(Viktor Yanukovich)下台后，俄罗斯对乌克兰实施了一系列禁运（最后以2016年的全面食品禁令收尾），并对欧盟实施了一系列进口禁令。

The example of Russia, the world’s leading proponent of strategic trade policy, should be a cautionary tale for Mr Trump. Russia’s policy has left it isolated and concentrated, susceptible to commodity price swings and with a declining standard of living. Despite record popularity for seizing Crimea, Russia’s inflation rate topped 15 per cent in 2017 and the economy has contracted since.

俄罗斯是世界上倡导战略性贸易政策的主要国家，它的事例应该对特朗普起到警示作用。俄罗斯的政策使得它被孤立并成为众矢之的，容易受到大宗商品价格波动的影响，且居民生活水平不断下滑。尽管其领导人凭借吞并克里米亚而获得创纪录的支持率，但2017年俄罗斯的通胀率高达15%，俄罗斯经济也自此陷入萎缩。

Extractive industries, once merely a third of Russia budget revenues, have regularly been above 50 per cent since 2006 and comprise well over 65 per cent of Russia’s exports. Behind a wall of protection, Russia has become a mono-economy, with US senator John McCain’s jibe that Russia was a “gas station masquerading as a country” not far off the mark. The drop in global oil prices since late 2017 has deepened the country’s economic malaise.

曾经在俄罗斯预算收入中仅占三分之一的采掘行业，自2006年以来占预算收入的比例通常在50%以上，占俄罗斯出口的比例超过65%。在保护主义的高墙后，俄罗斯成为了单一经济体。对此，美国参议员约翰?麦凯恩(John McCain)嘲讽俄罗斯是“假扮成国家的加油站”，这话并不离谱。自2017年末以来的国际油价下滑，使俄罗斯经济更加萧条。

Mr Putin has shown little interest in economic policy or in enacting pro-growth policies, instead seeing economics as a means to an end. Unfortunately, Mr Trump has espoused that very same worldview, a view which has led to a “stagnant but stable” Russia.

普京对经济政策或实行促增长的政策没什么兴趣，相反他把经济视为达到目的的手段。不幸的是，特朗普信奉的是同样的世界观——该观点造就了“停滞但稳定的”俄罗斯。

While Mr Trump sees politics as paramount for national greatness, to paraphrase Trotsky, you may not be interested in economics, but economics is interested in you.

尽管特朗普认为政治对于实现国家伟大是至关重要的，但套用托洛茨基(Trotsky)的话来说，你或许对经济没兴趣，但经济对你有兴趣。

Christopher A. Hartwell is the President of the Centre for Social and Economic Research in Warsaw (CASE) and the author of “Two Roads Diverge: the Transition Experience of Poland and Ukraine” (Cambridge University Press, 2016).

本文作者为位于华沙的社会和经济研究中心(Centre for Social and Economic Research)主席，著有《两条截然不同的道路：波兰和乌克兰的转型经验》(Two Roads Diverge: the Transition Experience of Poland and Ukraine)（剑桥大学出版社(Cambridge University Press)，2016年）