For most countries that received President Trump’s letters last week threatening steep tariffs, especially the Asian nations with economies focused on supplying the United States, there are no obvious substitutes as a destination for their goods.

对于上周收到特朗普总统威胁征收高额关税信函的大多数国家，尤其是那些经济以供应美国市场为主的亚洲国家而言，它们几乎找不到明显的替代出口目的地。

But they are doing their best to find them.

但它们正在尽力寻找。


Business and political leaders around the world have been roundly baffled by the White House’s imposition of new duties, even as governments shuttled envoys back and forth to Washington offering new purchases and pledges of reform. Mr. Trump is erecting new trade barriers and demanding deep concessions by Aug. 1, claiming years of grievance because America buys more than it sells.

尽管各国政府不断派遣特使往返华盛顿，提出新的采购计划和改革承诺，但白宫仍坚持征收新关税，这一做法令全球商界和政界领导人深感困惑。特朗普正在设置新的贸易壁垒，要求各国在8月1日前做出重大让步，声称美国多年来因进口大于出口而蒙受损失。


“Across the world, tools once used to generate growth are now wielded to pressure, isolate and contain,” Anwar Ibrahim, the prime minister of Malaysia, said at a gathering of Southeast Asian leaders on Wednesday. “As we navigate external pressures, we need to fortify our foundations. Trade among ourselves. Invest more in one another.”

马来西亚总理安瓦尔·易卜拉欣周三在东南亚领导人的峰会上表示：“在世界各地，曾经用于推动增长的工具如今却被用来施压、孤立和遏制。面对外部压力，我们需要巩固自身基础。加强彼此贸易，增加相互投资。”

马来西亚总理安瓦尔·易卜拉欣上周三表示：“面对外部压力，我们需要巩固自身基础。”

There are already a few signs of such efforts. South Korea’s new president, Lee Jae Myung, sent special envoys to Australia and Germany to discuss defense and trade issues, and plans on dispatching delegations to several others. Brazil and India announced plans to increase their bilateral trade by 70 percent, to $20 billion.

此类努力已初现端倪。韩国新任总统李在明已向澳大利亚和德国派遣特使讨论防务和贸易问题，并计划向其他多国派出代表团。巴西和印度宣布计划将双边贸易额提高70%，至200亿美元。

Indonesia says it is nearing a treaty with the European Union that would drop most tariffs on both sides to zero. And in Vietnam, which Mr. Trump said had accepted 20 percent tariffs on its goods headed to the United States before last week’s letters, the deputy trade minister emphasized efforts to reduce her country’s reliance on American consumers by leveraging other trade agreements.

印度尼西亚表示即将与欧盟达成协议，将双方大部分关税降至零。而在越南（特朗普称其在收到上周的信函前已接受对其输美商品征收20%的关税），该国贸易部副部长强调，正在努力通过利用其他贸易协议来减少对美国消费者的依赖。


“As more and more countries are feeling that it’s more difficult to satisfy U.S. demands, then their interest in working with others is going to intensify,” said Wendy Cutler, vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute.

亚洲协会政策研究所副所长温迪·卡特勒表示：“随着越来越多的国家感到满足美国的要求越来越难，它们与其他国家合作的兴趣将会增强。”


There is plenty of precedent for countries to seek other partners when their longstanding relationships sour.

当长期关系恶化时，各国寻求其他合作伙伴早有诸多先例。

During Mr. Trump’s first term, China retaliated against U.S. tariffs by buying smaller amounts of U.S. soybeans. Brazil filled the hole and now supplies most of China’s soybean demand, leaving American farmers with too much product and not enough buyers.

在特朗普总统的首个任期内，中国通过减少购买美国大豆来报复美国关税。巴西填补了这一空缺，如今已成为中国大豆的主要供应国，让美国农民面临大豆产量过剩、买家不足的困境。


In 2017, China boycotted goods from South Korea in retaliation for its willingness to host an American antiballistic missile system, seriously damaging South Korea’s China-dependent consumer and tourism industries. In response, South Korea expanded trade and investment with Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam.

2017年，中国因韩国同意部署美国反导系统而抵制韩国商品，这严重打击了依赖中国市场的韩国消费品和旅游业。作为应对，韩国扩大了与印尼、马来西亚和越南的贸易和投资。

Since Asian nations had already been working to diversify their customer bases, the current drive is not entirely new. But the region is still far from seamlessly integrated. South Korea, for example, has resisted joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade pact that rose from the ashes of negotiations with the United States that foundered in 2016.

由于亚洲国家此前已在努力推进消费者的多样化，因此当前的推动力并非全新。但该地区距离无缝整合仍遥远。例如，韩国一直拒绝加入《全面与进步跨太平洋伙伴关系协定》，该贸易协定的缘起是2016年各国与美国贸易谈判的破裂。

Byung-il Choi, a South Korean economist and former trade negotiator, has been urging his country to join that agreement, which its neighbor Japan has signed. New hostility from Washington may finally make it possible, and South Korea’s president, Mr. Lee, has been more amenable to Japan than many expected during his campaign.

韩国经济学家、前贸易谈判代表崔炳镒（音）一直竭力主张韩国加入这项协定，它的邻国日本已签署该协定。华盛顿的新敌意最终可能使其成为可能，而且韩国总统李在明在竞选期间对日本的态度比许多人预期的要更为友善。

“Japan and Korea believed that we are a staunch, ironclad ally of the U.S., but Donald Trump doesn’t believe in allies,” Mr. Choi said. “So Japan is anxious to get more significant members, and Korea’s incoming government is saying, ‘In the name of national interest, we could do anything.’”

“日韩曾自认是美国坚定可靠的盟友，但唐纳德·特朗普并不看重盟友，”崔炳镒说。“所以日本急于获得更重要的成员身份，而韩国新政府则表示，‘为了国家利益，我们可以采取任何措施。’”

美国国务卿马可·鲁比奥本月与日本外务大臣（左）及韩国外交部副部长举行会晤。特朗普政府正在设立新的贸易壁垒，并要求多个国家做出让步。

The latest tariff barrage has arrived as China has also been flooding the world with cheap goods to sustain its export-based growth. That oversupply of cars, appliances, electronics and textiles makes it harder for China’s neighbors to find their own niches.

最新的关税攻势来袭之际，中国也在向全球倾销廉价商品以维持其出口导向型增长。汽车、电器、电子产品和纺织品的供过于求使得中国的邻国更难找到自己的市场定位。

Some of them could benefit from the Trump administration’s determination to prevent Chinese goods from filtering through other countries to American ports. Chinese businesses have already been setting up factories in Southeast Asia in search of lower labor costs, and the new agreements may encourage them to locate more of their supply chain outside China as well. Companies in the region, squeezed by competition from China and now by tariffs, could work to improve their productivity and maintain market share.

其中一些国家可能会受益于特朗普政府阻止中国商品通过其他国家进入美国港口的决心。中国企业已经开始在东南亚设厂，以寻求更低的劳动力成本，新协议也可能鼓励它们将更多供应链设在中国以外。受中国竞争及当前关税双重挤压的本地区企业，可能会努力提高生产力并保持市场份额。

“They can do more efficiencies, maybe investing in new technology, digitalizing some of their factories, in order to reduce costs,” said Dionisius Narjoko, a senior economist at the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia. “It could be cheaper to export, and therefore they can become more competitive in new markets or even in the U.S.”

东盟与东亚经济研究所高级经济学家迪奥尼西乌斯·纳乔科表示：“它们可以提高效率，或许投资新技术，在一些工厂实现数字化以降低成本。这样出口可能会更便宜，从而在新市场甚至美国市场变得更具竞争力。”

To increase their citizens’ incomes, developing nations in Southeast Asia still need to create more homegrown enterprises. It’s not enough to remain the workshop for major powers. That requires steady leadership and focused investment, of the sort that allowed South Korea and Japan to grow into manufacturing powerhouses.

为了增加国民收入，东南亚发展中国家仍需培育更多本土企业。仅充当大国的加工厂是不够的。这需要稳定的领导力和专注的投资，韩国和日本就是通过这种方式成长为制造业强国的。

For example, while mostly Japanese companies now produce more than a million cars a year in Thailand, and the South Korean giant Samsung makes many of its cellphones in Vietnam, those Southeast Asian countries remain relatively poor.

例如，尽管目前以日本企业为主的公司在泰国年产汽车超百万辆，韩国巨头三星在越南生产大量手机，但这些东南亚国家仍相对贫穷。

“They need to internalize some industrial technology from the foreign direct investment,” said Kim Dongsoo, a senior research fellow with the Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade. “Everybody knows that’s kind of a problem, but not all governments can escape from that trap.”

韩国产业经济与贸易研究所高级研究员金东洙（音）指出：“它们需要吸收外国直接投资中的部分产业技术。众所周知，这是个问题，但并非所有政府都能摆脱这个困境。”

Ultimately, it could be advantageous for the countries that have become the targets of Mr. Trump’s tariff campaign to come up with a more collective response. So far, that hasn’t happened, as world leaders have continued to try to secure more favorable treatment for their own countries. Even the growing BRICS alliance, which drew Mr. Trump’s ire as it met in Rio de Janeiro and welcomed Indonesia as an official member, stopped short of taking any action to resist U.S. tariffs.

最终，对于那些成为特朗普关税运动的目标国家来说，若能做出一个更具集体性的回应可能是有利的。到目前为止，这种情况尚未实现，因为世界各国领导人仍在努力为本国争取更优惠的待遇。甚至日益壮大的金砖国家联盟（它在里约热内卢举行了峰会，并欢迎印度尼西亚成为正式成员，引发了特朗普的不满）也尚未采取任何行动抵制美国的关税。

到目前为止，金砖国家联盟尚未采取任何集体行动来抵制美国的关税措施。

“I haven’t seen indications that Southeast Asian nations are trying to join together and present a united front,” said Alexander Hynd, an assistant professor at the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute. But that could change if the current pace of upheaval continues.

“我尚未看到东南亚国家试图联合起来形成统一战线的迹象，”墨尔本大学亚洲研究所助理教授亚历山大·海德说。但如果当前的动荡局面持续下去，这种情况可能会改变。

“The U.S. is fairly rapidly attempting to dismantle the system that it set up, which is surprising a lot of people,” Mr. Hynd said.

“美国正在相当迅速地试图瓦解它自己建立的体系，这让很多人感到惊讶，”海德说。