For decades, the rest of the world, especially China and countries in Europe, have produced much more than they have consumed, selling goods to America in exchange for an ever-growing pile of U.S. dollars. This could happen because the United States consumes much more than it produces, gobbling up the difference in the form of persistent trade deficits, and financing those deficits with debt, which Chinese and European investors are happy to buy.

几十年来，世界其他国家（尤其是中国和欧洲国家）生产的产品远远超出消费需求，这些国家向美国出售商品，换取越来越多的美元。之所以会出现这种情况，是因为美国的消费远远超过了自身的生产，以持续的贸易逆差的形式来填补两者的差异，并通过举债为这些逆差融资，而中国和欧洲的投资者乐于购买这些债务。

President Trump is unwilling to accept this state of affairs. His administration has accelerated a shift to what my colleagues and I at the investment management firm Bridgewater Associates call modern mercantilism: the view that trade deficits are a threat to national wealth and strength.

特朗普总统不愿接受这种状况。他的政府加快了向我和我在投资管理公司桥水的同事所称的现代重商主义的转变：认为贸易逆差对国家财富和实力构成了威胁。

Mr. Trump and many of his supporters believe that persistent trade deficits have made America dangerously dependent on other economies, put national security at risk and undermined stable middle-class work. That’s the primary reason he is imposing tariffs and adopting other policies that are in the headlines today.

特朗普和他的许多支持者都认为持续的贸易赤字使美国对其他经济体产生了危险的依赖，这不仅危及国家安全，还破坏了中产阶级稳定的就业机会。这就是他征收关税、采取其他引人关注的政策的主要原因。

While modern mercantilist policies are meant to counter all American competitors, they pose a particularly severe threat to Europe’s economic engine. If the United States is unwilling to continue to run big trade deficits, it means that the “pie” available to everyone else to produce more than they consume is shrinking.

尽管现代重商主义政策旨在对抗美国所有的竞争对手，但它们对欧洲的经济引擎构成了尤为严峻的威胁。如果美国不愿继续维持巨额贸易逆差，那就意味着可供其他国家和地区生产多于消费的“蛋糕”正在缩小。

But this challenge could finally push the region toward urgently needed change and economic revitalization. After Mr. Trump’s recent actions and comments on Ukraine, Europe has abruptly realized that it can no longer rely on the United States for security; the region needs to acknowledge that it can’t rely on the U.S. for economic stability, either.

不过，这一挑战最终可能会促使欧洲走向迫切需要的变革和经济振兴。在特朗普最近就乌克兰问题采取的行动和发表的言论之后，欧洲突然意识到，它不能再依赖美国来保障安全；它也需要认识到，同样不能把经济稳定寄托在美国身上。

The United States has the upper hand in this trade conflict precisely because it currently runs large trade deficits. It has more imports to tariff than exports, and it has more to gain should American companies respond by increasing domestic investment and bringing supply chains back home.

美国在这场贸易冲突中有优势，恰恰是因为它目前存在巨大的贸易逆差。它需要征收关税的进口商品多于出口商品，而且如果美国企业通过增加国内投资并将供应链带回国内，美国将获得更多收益。

This is the opposite of its positioning during the Great Depression-era trade war, which began with the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930. The United States was the one running a trade surplus at the time, so it was more vulnerable to tariffs and protectionist measures.

这与美国在大萧条时期贸易战中的处境截然相反，那场贸易战始于1930年的《斯穆特-霍利关税法》。当时美国是贸易顺差国，所以更容易受到关税和保护主义措施的冲击。

As tariffs ramp up, every country running a surplus with America will find it harder to sell its products in the United States, but those in Europe will suffer most, because their most important industries are exactly those where China has built the biggest advantages.

随着关税不断提高，每个对美贸易顺差的国家都会发现，向美国出口变得越来越难，但欧洲国家受到的损失最大，因为它们最重要的产业恰恰是中国已建立最大优势的产业。

China has held modern mercantilist beliefs for decades and has for many years used the instruments of government to subsidize industries that it considers strategically important, taking huge losses along the way. At times, it has supported production well above the level of demand in the marketplace.

几十年来，中国一直奉行现代重商主义，多年来一直利用政府工具来补贴它认为具有重要战略意义的产业，并在此过程中承受巨大损失。有时，它支持的生产远远高于市场需求水平。

After decades of government-supported technological advancement, China is a strong competitor in a wide range of sectors: cars, advanced industrial machinery, electrical equipment and appliances; not to mention fields, such as artificial intelligence, that Chinese policymakers prize. As a result, Chinese companies are well positioned to grab the biggest piece of the available trade surplus pie.

经过几十年政府支持的技术进步，中国在众多领域都成为了强有力的竞争者：汽车、先进工业机械、电气设备和电器等；更不用说人工智能等中国政策制定者极为重视的领域了。因此，中国企业完全有能力争夺现存的贸易顺差“蛋糕”最大的一块。

Europe, on the other hand, will find itself increasingly squeezed, with the United States unwilling to absorb what it produces and China competing against it in Europe and in whatever smaller countries remain that are still open to exports.

另一方面，欧洲将发现自己越来越受到挤压，因为美国不愿意吸收它生产的产品，而中国在欧洲以及任何仍然对出口开放的较小国家与欧洲展开竞争。

The European auto industry is already feeling this squeeze. Foreign electric vehicle manufacturers have upended the market, particularly Tesla and Chinese companies like BYD, both of which were supported by varying levels of government industrial policy until they became profitable. European governments, however, have been hesitant to follow the same path and funnel public money to private industry; they are caught between a desire to protect their own automakers from Chinese competition and the fear of losing access to the Chinese market if China reciprocates with protectionist measures.

欧洲的汽车行业已经感受到了这种挤压。外国电动汽车制造商已经颠覆了这个市场，尤其是特斯拉以及比亚迪等中国车企。在实现盈利之前，这两家企业都在不同程度上得到了政府产业政策的支持。然而，欧洲各国政府却始终在犹豫是否走同样的路，向私营企业注入公共资金；他们陷入了左右为难的境地，一方面希望保护本国汽车制造商免受中国车企的竞争，另一方面又担心如果中国以保护主义措施进行回应，欧洲将失去中国市场。

The threat to Europe’s auto industry is existential; investors’ views on these companies are so pessimistic as to imply they may lose the battle to survive. If stock prices continue on this downward trajectory, the economic pain from knocking out such an important industry will expand to the rest of the economy, ramping up pressure on European leaders to adopt protectionism and competitive industrial policy.

欧洲汽车工业面临着生存威胁；投资者对这些企业的看法非常悲观，甚至认为它们可能会输掉生存之战。如果股价继续下行，那么淘汰如此重要的产业所带来的经济痛苦将扩大到经济的其他领域，从而加大对欧洲领导人采取保护主义和竞争性产业政策的压力。

While the pressure to protect these legacy industries will be intense, it will be a colossal mistake if Europe fails to simultaneously address what made its economies so vulnerable in the first place: slow productivity growth and weak innovation. China built itself into a competitive powerhouse through technological disruption (in part government supported), while the United States has handily outperformed Europe in technological innovation and productivity growth over the past decade. For example, California has produced more than a quarter of the world’s “unicorns” — young companies valued at over $1 billion — while Germany, an economy of roughly the same size, has produced only 2 percent.

虽然保护这些传统产业的压力会很大，但如果在同一时间，欧洲不能首先解决使其经济如此脆弱的原因（生产力增长缓慢和创新能力不足），那将是一个巨大的错误。中国通过（部分得到政府支持的）技术颠覆将自己打造成了一个具有竞争力的强国，而美国在过去十年中的技术创新和生产率增长则远超欧洲。比如，加利福尼亚州诞生了全球超过四分之一的“独角兽”企业（即估值超过10亿美元的新兴企业），而经济规模与之大致相当的德国只有2%。

Europe has lagged behind the United States thanks to its fractious and duplicative regulatory system, particularly in the tech sector, and rigid labor markets that make it hard for companies to hire and fire workers.

欧洲之所以落后于美国，是因为其监管体系（尤其是在科技领域）混乱、重复监管，而且劳动力市场僵化，企业很难雇用和解雇员工。

These problems are well known. In 2024, the European Union released a sobering report on its competitiveness, led by the former Italian prime minister Mario Draghi, that was unsparing in its criticism and forceful in its recommendations for change.

这些问题是众所周知的。2024年，由意大利前总理马里奥·德拉吉牵头，欧盟发布了一份令人警醒的竞争力报告，该报告毫不留情地指出了问题所在，并提出了有力的变革建议。

Some of its proposals, such as nearly $900 billion of public investment in sectors like technology and defense, could be transformative, addressing some of the most acute barriers to productivity and innovation in Europe. So far, European policymakers have been slow to execute the Draghi report’s recommendations, despite widespread calls to move with urgency.

报告中的一些建议，例如在技术和国防等领域进行近9000亿美元的公共投资，可能会带来变革，解决欧洲生产力和创新方面面临的一些最严重障碍。到目前为止，欧洲的决策者在落实德拉吉报告的建议方面进展缓慢，尽管人们普遍呼吁要尽快采取行动。

The continent’s security crisis may finally be galvanizing action. Germany has taken a essential step and forgone self-imposed constraints on fiscal policy to make meaningful investments in defense. The question is whether Europe will take this opportunity to more broadly transform its economy — and whether its leaders will realize they have no other good choices.

欧洲大陆的安全危机或许最终会促使人们采取行动。德国已经迈出了关键一步，放弃了对财政政策的自我限制，以便在国防领域进行有意义的投资。问题在于，欧洲是否会借此机会更广泛地进行经济转型，以及欧洲的领导人是否会意识到，他们没有其他更好的选择。