President Trump’s self-proclaimed “liberation day,” in which he announced across-the-board tariffs on the United States’ trading partners, carries an echo of another moment when an advanced Western economy threw up walls around itself.

在特朗普总统自称的“解放日”，他宣布对美国的贸易伙伴全面征收关税，这让人想起另一个西方发达经济体在自己周围筑起高墙的时刻。

Like Brexit, Britain’s fateful vote nearly nine years ago to leave the European Union, Mr. Trump’s tariffs struck a hammer blow at the established order. Pulling the United States out of the global economy is not unlike Britain’s withdrawing from a Europe-wide trading bloc, and in the view of Brexiteers, a comparable act of liberation.

就像英国近九年前那场决定退出欧盟的重大公投——“脱欧”一样，特朗普的关税对既有秩序造成了沉重打击。美国退出全球经济与英国退出欧洲范围内的贸易集团并无二致，而且在英国的脱欧派看来，这也是一种类似的解放之举。

The shock of Mr. Trump’s move is reverberating even more widely, given the larger size of the American economy and its place at the fulcrum of global commerce. Yet as with Brexit, its ultimate impact is unsettled: Mr. Trump could yet reverse himself, chastened by plummeting markets or mollified by one-off deals.

鉴于美国经济的体量更大，以及它在全球商业的核心地位，特朗普此举的冲击正带来更广泛的反响。然而，与英国脱欧一样，其最终影响尚不确定：特朗普有可能因市场暴跌而受挫，或因达成一次性协议而态度软化，从而改变自己的立场。

More important, economists say, the rise of free trade may be irreversible, its benefits so powerful that the rest of the world finds a way to keep the system going, even without its central player. For all of the setbacks to trade liberalization, and the grievances expressed in Mr. Trump’s actions, the barriers have kept falling.

经济学家们表示，更重要的是，自由贸易的崛起可能是不可逆转的，它带来的好处是如此巨大，以至于即使没有了核心参与者，世界其他地方也会找到保持这一体系运转的方法。尽管贸易自由化遭遇了种种挫折，特朗普的行动也表达了种种不满，但贸易壁垒一直在下降。

The European Union, optimists point out, did not unravel after Britain’s departure. These days, the political talk in London is about ways in which Britain can draw closer to its European neighbors. Still, that sense of possibility has come only after years of turbulence. Economists expect similar chaos to buffet the global trading system as a result of Mr. Trump’s theatrical exit.

乐观主义者指出，英国脱欧后，欧盟并没有解体。如今，伦敦的政治话题是英国如何拉近与欧洲邻国的关系。不过，这种可能性也是在经历了数年动荡之后才出现的。经济学家预计，特朗普戏剧性的退出会给全球贸易体系带来类似的混乱。

“It will not be the end of free trade, but it is certainly a retreat from unfettered free trade, which is the way the world seemed to be going,” said Eswar S. Prasad, a professor of trade policy at Cornell University. “Logically, this would be a time when the rest of the world bands together to promote free trade among themselves,” he said. “The reality is, it’s going to be every country for itself.”

“这不会是自由贸易的终结，但确实标志着世界似乎曾经追求的那种不受限制的自由贸易正在收缩，”康奈尔大学贸易政策教授埃斯瓦尔·普拉萨德说。“从逻辑上讲，此时世界其他国家本应联合起来促进彼此之间自由贸易，”他说。“现实情况是，每个国家都将只为自己打算。”

英国费利克斯托港的货运集装箱。英国脱欧后与欧盟的关系可以作为美国与其贸易伙伴未来关系的范例。

Such a world will be not only unruly, but also potentially more dangerous. While trade wars do not necessarily spiral into shooting wars, historians note that some conflicts, like the War of 1812 and the Opium Wars of the mid-19th century, were rooted in trade disputes. An all-out trade war between the United States and China would inject sparks into an already combustible relationship.

这样的世界不仅混乱无序，而且还可能更加危险。虽然贸易战不一定会演变成枪战，但历史学家指出，一些冲突，比如1812年战争和19世纪中叶的鸦片战争，根源就在于贸易争端。美中之间的全面贸易战将为本已火药味十足的两国关系火上浇油。

“If you think about the broader conflict between the U.S. and China,” Professor Prasad said, “the economic and financial relationship provided a degree of balance. That balance is now eroding.”

“如果考虑到美中之间更广泛的冲突，”普拉萨德说，“经济和金融关系提供了一定程度的平衡。而这种平衡现在正在被打破。”

Mr. Trump has stopped short of the kind of gunboat diplomacy used by Britain against China in the Opium Wars. But his pugilistic posture toward some of America’s closest trading partners, like Canada and Mexico, has deepened the sense of dislocation and could divide the response of countries.

特朗普没有采取英国在鸦片战争中对中国使用的那种炮舰外交。但他对加拿大和墨西哥等美国最亲密的贸易伙伴采取的强硬姿态加剧了人们的混乱感，并可能导致各国的反应出现分歧。

Economists said the United States’ singular position as the biggest engine of global growth, because of its unquenchable appetite for cars manufactured in Germany and iPhones assembled in China, would make it hard for countries to reorient their trading relationships around a less welcoming American market.

经济学家表示，由于美国对德国制造的汽车和中国组装的iPhone有着无法抑制的需求，美国作为全球增长最大引擎的独特地位将使各国难以围绕一个不那么热情好客的美国市场重新调整贸易关系。

That suggests many countries will end up trying to cut deals with Mr. Trump, as Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he would do last week, after the United States hit Britain with a 10 percent tariff. Others will impose retaliatory tariffs to try to better their bargaining position with the United States.

这意味着许多国家最终将试图与特朗普达成协议，就像英国首相斯塔默上周在美国对英国征收10%的关税后表示他将做的那样。还有一些国家将征收报复性关税，试图在与美国的谈判中争取更有利的地位。

China struck swiftly on Friday, with tit-for-tat tariffs of 34 percent, after speculation that it might coordinate its response with its neighbors Japan and South Korea. Already, the European Union is warning countries that find themselves priced out of the American market not to dump cheap exports in its market.

周五，中国迅速采取行动，针锋相对地征收了34%的关税，此前外界曾经猜测，中国可能会与邻国日本和韩国协调应对。欧盟已经警告那些发现自己被排挤出美国市场的国家不要向欧盟市场倾销廉价出口产品。

“A lot will depend on how Europe decides to play this,” said Simon Johnson, a professor at the Sloan School of Management at M.I.T. and former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. “The Europeans could get closer to China and pick up a lot of the slack from Vietnam.”

“这在很大程度上取决于欧洲决定如何应对，”麻省理工学院斯隆管理学院教授、国际货币基金组织前首席经济学家西蒙·约翰逊说。“欧洲人可能会与中国走得更近，把越南的许多商品消化掉。”

杭州一家生产自行车用不锈钢钢圈的工厂。

“That would create a big non-U.S. trading bloc,” he continued. “But I don’t think the Europeans are going to be comfortable with all those Chinese exports pouring into Europe. Where do these excess exports go?”

“这将创造一个巨大的非美国贸易集团，”他继续说。“但我认为欧洲人不会乐于看到大量中国出口商品涌入欧。这些过剩的出口将流向哪里？”

Europe’s likely resistance to absorbing more Chinese imports will confront China’s leaders with a thorny challenge. They can either adopt measures to make China less reliant on exports by stoking demand among their own population, something they tried to do in the past with mixed results. Or they can seek a deal with Mr. Trump, something they failed to do during his first term, despite signing a preliminary agreement.

欧洲可能会抵制更多中国进口商品，这将使中国领导人面临一个棘手的挑战。他们要么采取措施，通过刺激本国民众的需求来降低中国对出口的依赖，过去他们曾试图这么做过，但结果好坏参半。或者他们可以寻求与特朗普达成协议，尽管他们在特朗普的第一任期内签署了一项初步协议，但最终还是未能达成协议。

For all of the criticism of Mr. Trump’s blunt-force methods, economists say he is responding to a genuine problem: the rise of China as a hypercompetitive trading power, one that heavily subsidizes its own companies. That has hollowed out American manufacturing, in Mr. Trump’s view; the tariffs, he claims, will bring it back.

尽管对特朗普的粗暴手段有很多批评，但经济学家们表示，他是在回应一个真正的问题：中国作为一个极具竞争力的贸易大国正在崛起，这个国家大量补贴本国公司。在特朗普看来，这掏空了美国制造业；他声称，关税将使美国制造业复苏。

When he came into office, President Barack Obama asked whether one of his Democratic predecessors, Bill Clinton, had given away too much in allowing China to join the World Trade Organization. Mr. Obama imposed a 35 percent tariff on China from 2009 to 2012, for dumping tires into the American market. And when President Joseph R. Biden Jr. inherited Mr. Trump’s first-term tariffs on China, he left them in place.

奥巴马总统上任时曾质疑，他的民主党前任克林顿是否在允许中国加入世界贸易组织方面做出了太多让步。2009年至2012年，奥巴马对中国向美国市场倾销轮胎征收了35%的关税。拜登总统继承了特朗普第一任期内对中国征收的关税，并没有做出改变。

“The global trading system has been under pressure for a while, and that pressure has really been symbolized by the rise of China,” Professor Johnson said. “It was more damaging and disruptive than Japan.”

“全球贸易体系承受压力已经有一段时间了，中国的崛起真正体现了这种压力，”约翰逊说。“它比日本更具破坏性和颠覆性。”

The World Trade Organization estimated that Mr. Trump’s measures, on top of his previously announced tariffs, will reduce global merchandise trade volume 1 percent in 2025, a downward revision of nearly four percentage points from its earlier forecast. A full-scale trade war would do further damage.

世界贸易组织估计，特朗普在此前宣布的关税基础上采取的措施，将使2025年全球商品贸易量减少1%，比此前的预测下调了近4个百分点。全面的贸易战将造成进一步的损害。

Still, some optimists predicted that Mr. Trump’s tariffs would accelerate the integration of other countries, either through bilateral trade deals or regional trade pacts. The United States, they note, is the only country that pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which was later renegotiated without it, forging a trade pact among the other big economies that border the Pacific.

尽管如此，一些乐观主义者预测，特朗普的关税将通过双边贸易协定或区域贸易协定加速其他国家的一体化进程。他们指出，美国是唯一退出《跨太平洋伙伴关系协定》的国家。后来该框架在没有美国的情况下进行重新谈判，在太平洋沿岸的其他大型经济体之间达成了一项贸易协定。

Even Brexit, though it drew on the same grievances about globalization as Mr. Trump’s MAGA movement, was not framed as a protectionist project. Brexiteers argued that, once freed from the shackles of the European Union, Britain could negotiate better trade deals on its own. Last week, they credited Brexit as the reason Britain’s 10 percent tariff was half that of the European Union.

即使英国脱欧和特朗普的“让美国恢复伟大荣光”运动一样，利用了人们对全球化的不满，但它也没有被局限在贸易保护主义之内。脱欧派认为，一旦摆脱欧盟的束缚，英国可以自行谈判达成更好的贸易协议。上周，他们将特朗普对英国征收10%的关税（仅为欧盟的一半）归功于英国脱欧。

肯尼亚内罗毕的一家纺织厂。包括肯尼亚在内的许多非洲国家都受到了关税打击。

“You’re going to see more countries around the world striking free trade deals, just around the U.S.,” said Jason Furman, a professor of economic policy at Harvard Kennedy School who was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Obama administration. “I see it as a turning point for the United States at the center of the global trading system,” he said, “but not for how the world thinks about free trade.”

“你会看到世界上更多的国家会绕开美国签署自由贸易协议，”哈佛大学肯尼迪学院经济政策教授、奥巴马政府经济顾问委员会主席杰森·弗曼表示。“我认为这是美国全球贸易体系中心地位的转折点，”他说，“但世界对自由贸易的认知并未因此改变。”