When President Trump campaigned in 2024, he promised a trade agenda that would hit China harder than any other economic partner, expanding on actions he had taken in his first term.

2024年特朗普竞选时，他承诺对华推行一套打击力度将超过针对任何其他经济伙伴的贸易议程，并且要在其首个任期内采取的行动基础上进一步加码。

Mr. Trump talked about imposing a tariff of 60 percent or more on the country, and proposed stripping China of the preferential trade relations given to it when it joined the World Trade Organization. The rest of the world would be subject to tariffs too, but they would be much lower, at 10 or 20 percent.

特朗普当时扬言，要对中国征收60%甚至更高的关税，并提议取消中国加入世贸组织后所获得的优惠贸易待遇。其他国家同样会被征收关税，但税率将低得多，在10%至20%之间。

More than a year into Mr. Trump’s first term, the picture looks dramatically different. Though U.S. tariffs on China are higher overall when the tariffs from Mr. Trump’s first term are added in, other countries have faced punitive levies that were nearly as high, and higher for some products.

然而，特朗普第二任期开局已一年有余，现实与当初的放话却大相径庭。尽管叠加第一任期的关税后，美国对华关税整体水平提高了，但其他许多国家也承受了几乎同样惩罚性的税率，部分商品的关税甚至更高。

The Trump administration has saved its most caustic criticism for allies in Europe and Canada, while approaching China more cautiously. And as Mr. Trump heads to Beijing this week for a summit with the Chinese leader Xi Jinping, expectations for its outcomes are limited.

特朗普政府将最狠的话留给了欧洲和加拿大等盟友，对中国反而态度更为审慎。而随着特朗普本周前往北京与中国领导人习近平举行峰会，外界对此次会谈的预期相当有限。

Rather than pushing China for broader structural changes to its economy, as Mr. Trump’s aides did in his first term, the focus now is largely on maintaining stable relations between the countries, while restoring or increasing U.S. sales of products like airplanes, ethanol, soybeans, beef and sorghum.

与特朗普第一任期时其助手试图推动中国进行更广泛经济结构改革不同，如今的重点主要变成了维持两国关系稳定，同时恢复或增加美国飞机、乙醇、大豆、牛肉和高粱等商品的对华出口。

The remarkable shrinking of Mr. Trump’s Chinese ambitions is the result of the events of the last year, when China responded to Mr. Trump’s tariffs by cutting off the supply of rare earth minerals and magnets needed by American companies making everything from cars and weaponry to power tools.

特朗普对华雄心的大幅缩水是过去一年局势发展的结果。当时，中国以切断稀土矿物和磁材的供应来回击特朗普的关税，而这些是美国从汽车、武器到电动工具等各类制造企业所必需的原材料。

Facing the prospect of shuttered U.S. factories and widespread economic damage, the Trump administration appears to have given up the idea of a more ambitious deal with China — widely acknowledged as America’s most problematic trading partner — even as it presses less troublesome partners more aggressively than ever before.

面对美国工厂停产以及经济遭受大面积冲击的前景，特朗普政府似乎已经放弃了与中国达成更宏大协议的想法——尽管中国被普遍认为是美国最棘手的贸易伙伴——与此同时，美国却以前所未有的强硬向其他那些不是那么棘手的伙伴施压。

Myron Brilliant, a senior counselor at DGA-Albright Stonebridge Group, a consulting firm, said this week’s summit in Beijing would be “high on strategic distrust and high on symbolism but low on ambition.” Last year was a tumultuous period for U.S.-China relations, he said, and both sides “are in risk management now.”

咨询公司奥尔布赖特石桥集团的高级顾问薄迈伦(Myron Brilliant)本周表示，此次北京峰会将是“战略互疑高、象征意义高、雄心却很低”的一次会面。他说，过去一年美中关系充满动荡，双方如今都进入了“风险管理模式”。

“Each side seeks stability, and deliverables will be largely short-term in nature,” he said. Mr. Brilliant said the outcomes could include agricultural and airplane purchases, and agreements to curb fentanyl exports.

“双方都在寻求稳定，取得的成果基本将是短期的，”薄迈伦说。他表示，峰会成果可能包括农产品和飞机的采购协议，以及遏制芬太尼出口的相关安排。

U.S. officials have talked about the creation of a new “board of trade” that would oversee the agreed purchases, which could run to tens of billions of dollars. Others have suggested the meeting could result in lower tariffs on more general products, to spur their sales.

美国官员谈到要成立一个新的“贸易委员会”，负责监督双方达成的采购协议，这些采购规模可能高达数百亿美元。还有一些人则建议，此次会晤可能会降低更多普通产品的关税，以刺激销售。

While Mr. Trump’s global tariffs have been repeatedly struck down by the courts, the administration is preparing two new trade investigations that are likely to result in more levies on dozens of countries this summer, including China. Chinese officials are expected to press U.S. officials to keep those tariffs low.

尽管特朗普的全球关税政策屡遭法院叫停，政府仍在筹备两项新的贸易调查，可能在今夏对包括中国在内的数十个国家加征新一轮关税。预计中国官员将向美方施压，要求维持较低税率。

Analysts said Chinese officials also appeared likely to push for the relaxation of U.S. technology controls or a change in U.S. posture on Taiwan, a self-governing island that China claims as its own.

分析人士表示，中国官员也很可能推动美国放松技术管制，或调整美国对台湾的立场。台湾是一个实行自治的岛屿，中国宣称对其拥有主权。

Kurt Campbell, a former U.S. deputy Secretary of State, said the Chinese side would be looking, wherever possible, to get the United States to relent on economic actions like tariffs. But the most important priority for China is to get Mr. Trump to depart from traditional approaches when it comes to Taiwan.

前美国副国务卿库尔特·坎贝尔表示，中方会尽可能寻求让美国在关税等经济行动上让步。但对中国而言，最重要的优先议题是让特朗普在台湾问题上脱离传统做法。

“If there are deals to be made on Chinese substantial purchases of agricultural or beef products, pork or Boeing, they will expect things in return for that,” he said.

“如果要在中方大量购买农产品、牛肉、猪肉或波音飞机上达成协议，中方会期待有所回报，”他说。

U.S. officials have said they don’t expect to see any changes with regard to policy on Taiwan. In a briefing with reporters Sunday, Anna Kelly, a spokeswoman for the White House, said that Mr. Trump had refocused U.S.-China relations “on what matters most, rebuilding the safety, security and prosperity of Americans.”

美国官员表示，他们预计在台湾政策方面不会看到任何变化。白宫发言人安娜·凯利在周日的媒体吹风会上表示，特朗普已经将美中关系重新聚焦于“最重要的事情，即重建美国人的安全、保障和繁荣”。

“During this visit, President Trump will continue doing what he has done over the past year, rebalancing the relationship with China and prioritizing reciprocity and fairness to restore American economic independence,” she said.

“在此次访问期间，特朗普总统将一如既往地推进过去一年所做的工作——重新平衡对华关系，优先追求互惠与公平，以恢复美国的经济独立，”她说。

Despite Mr. Trump’s aggressive talk during the campaign, his advisers say his goal was never a decisive decoupling with China. Instead, he envisioned his trade threats as a way to push Beijing into a bigger trade deal that would tilt the balance in the relationship to benefit the U.S. economy and help ensure global peace.

尽管特朗普在竞选期间措辞激烈，但顾问们表示，他的目标从来都不是与中国彻底脱钩。相反，他设想的是利用贸易威胁迫使北京达成更大的贸易协议，从而让双边关系更加有利于美国经济，并有助于确保全球和平。

The problem was the execution. When Mr. Trump tried to force China into making concessions last year by threatening extreme tariffs, the tactic backfired, forcing the U.S. to pare back its goals.

问题出在执行上。去年，当特朗普试图以极端关税威胁迫使中国做出让步时，这一策略适得其反，迫使美国调低了自己的目标。

“They did move to be more aggressive on China,” Mary Lovely, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said of U.S. officials. “What happened was China decided to invoke its significant choke-points of its own and countered the U.S. in ways that it hadn’t done before.”

“他们确实采取了对华更为强硬的行动，”彼得森国际经济研究所高级研究员玛丽·洛弗利在谈到美国官员时表示。“实际情况是，中国决定动用自身掌握的重要卡脖子手段，以此前从未有过的方式反制美国。”

“I have no idea why they didn’t anticipate that,” she added.

“我不知道他们为什么没有预料到这一点，”她补充道。

As the situation escalated again last fall, top officials including Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, and Jamieson Greer, the trade representative, assembled a list of actions they could take to strike back, including restrictions on things like software, semiconductor manufacturing equipment and visas, that might force Beijing to back down.

去年秋天局势再次升级时，财政部长斯科特·贝森特和贸易代表贾米森·格里尔等高层官员制定了一份可采取的反制措施清单，包括对软件、半导体制造设备和签证等方面的限制，希望借此迫使北京退让。

But ahead of a meeting with Mr. Xi in South Korea in October, the president told his advisers instead to try to push for a truce. The United States ended up shelving a variety of actions on China, including a delay in the imposition of a sweeping technology restriction that would affect Chinese companies, and new fees on Chinese ships aimed at building up the U.S. shipbuilding industry.

然而，在10月赴韩国与习近平会面前夕，特朗普却告诉顾问们争取达成停战协议。美国最终搁置了一系列对华行动，包括推迟实施一项将影响中国企业的大范围技术限制，以及旨在扶持美国造船业而对中国船只征收的新收费措施。

In recent months, the United States and China have maintained a tentative truce. Many exports of Chinese rare earths have resumed to companies not linked to the military, though U.S. companies remain intensely concerned about their longer-term access to minerals. The administration has taken steps to try to increase the domestic supply of rare earths, including creating a critical minerals stockpile, but U.S. industry remains heavily reliant on China for the materials that will be critical to the U.S. economy going forward.

近几个月来，美国和中国维持着脆弱的休战状态。中国对许多非军工相关企业的稀土出口已恢复，尽管美国企业仍对其长期获取矿产的能力深感担忧。政府已采取措施努力扩大国内稀土供应，包括建立关键矿产储备，但美国产业界在这些对未来经济至关重要的原材料上仍高度依赖中国。

After Mr. Trump met Mr. Xi in South Korea, both sides talked enthusiastically of meetings to come between the leaders in the following year. A meeting was planned for April, but then rescheduled for May because of the Iran conflict.

特朗普在韩国与习近平会晤后，双方都热情谈论未来一年继续举行领导人会晤的计划。原定4月举行的峰会因伊朗冲突改期至5月。

Christopher Padilla, a former trade official in the George W. Bush administration, agreed that there would likely not be “a lot of big outcomes.” He added, “They’re going to agree we buy some of this, they buy some of that, and then they’ll have a party and call it a day.”

前小布什政府贸易官员克里斯托弗·帕迪利亚同样认为，此次峰会不大可能产生“多少重大成果”。他说：“双方会商定我买一些这个、他们买一些那个，然后开个派对，算是交差了事。”

U.S. officials say their talks will result in a fairer trade relationship with China, and argue that they still have an edge. But the Chinese government seems more determined than ever to match any offensive U.S. measures step for step, in ways that could be deeply harmful for the U.S. economy.

美国官员表示，此次谈判将带来更公平的对华贸易关系，并认为美方仍占据优势。然而，中国政府似乎比以往任何时候都更坚定地准备对美国的每一步施压进行对等回应，而这种回应可能会对美国经济造成严重伤害。

China has issued regulations in recent months to investigate and punish foreign companies that stop using Chinese suppliers in response to foreign pressure. And after the United States penalized several Chinese refineries for purchasing Iranian oil, the Chinese government took the unorthodox step of ordering its companies not to comply with the sanctions.

近几个月来，中国已出台法规，调查并惩罚那些因外国压力而停止使用中国供应商的外国公司。在美国对几家购买伊朗石油的中国炼油厂实施制裁后，中国政府采取了非同寻常的做法，下令中国企业不要遵守这些制裁。

Ms. Lovely of the Peterson Institute said China had been building out the legal foundation for measures to counter foreign sanctions for a decade. “Now they feel confident enough to use them,” she said.

彼得森研究所的洛弗利表示，中国已用十年时间构建起一套反制外国制裁的法律基础。“现在，他们对动用这套工具已有足够的自信，”她说。