托马斯·弗里德曼2025年11月4日As a real estate developer, Donald Trump is deeply familiar with the three keys to success in that industry: location, location and location. Geopolitics, it turns out, also has three keys to success: leverage, leverage and leverage. But it’s not the kind of leverage (i.e., debt) that Trump loved to use in real estate. It’s geopolitical leverage — the power to impose your will on your adversary.作为房地产开发商，特朗普深谙该行业成功的三大关键：地段、地段，还是地段。而事实证明，地缘政治的成功同样有三大关键：杠杆、杠杆、还是杠杆。但这并非特朗普在房地产领域热衷使用的那种“杠杆”（也就是债务），而是地缘政治杠杆——一种能将自身意愿强加于对手的力量。Seen from that point of view, Trump succeeded in bringing about a cease-fire in Gaza because he gained leverage over both Israel and Hamas — and he used it adroitly. He has failed to bring about a cease-fire in Ukraine, because he has refused to use all the leverage he has on Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who started the war. And Trump’s attempts to employ the leverage of tariffs to reduce China’s manufacturing exports to America — more necessary today than ever — has shown only limited gains largely because of the chaotic way Trump has gone about putting those tariffs into place.从这一角度来看，特朗普成功推动加沙停火，是因为他同时获得了对以色列和哈马斯的杠杆，并巧妙加以运用。但他未能促成乌克兰停火，原因在于他拒绝动用手中所有杠杆针对发动战争的俄罗斯总统普京。此外，特朗普试图通过关税杠杆减少中国对美的制造业出口——如今这一举措比以往任何时候都更有必要——但收效甚微，这在很大程度上是因为他推行关税的方式混乱无序。Of course, Trump, with his usual bluster, scored his recent meeting with President Xi Jinping of China as a grand slam — “a 12” on a scale of 0-10, as he put it. In fact, at this summit, all Trump did was dig himself out of a hole with China that he himself dug a few months ago. As The Wall Street Journal noted, markets “yawned” at the deal because it “mostly restores the status quo that prevailed in May.”当然，特朗普依旧夸夸其谈，将近期与中国国家主席习近平的会面吹嘘为自己赢得的大满贯——用他的话说，如果满分是10分，这次会面能打“12分”。但事实上，在此次会晤中，特朗普所做的不过是走出了几个月前他自己给中美关系挖下的坑。正如《华尔街日报》所指出的，市场对此次会谈成果“反应冷淡”，因为它只是“基本上恢复了5月时的状况”。So, if you’re keeping score at home, Trump is batting one for three — or .333. In baseball, that can get you into the All-Star Game. In the game of nations, it gets you sent down to the minor leagues.所以，若按棒球比赛的标准来评，他的成绩是三打数一安打，打击率为0.333。在棒球界，这样的成绩足以入选全明星赛；但在国家间的博弈中，这样的表现只会让你降级到小联盟。Why .333? Let’s focus on China, which is the most important geostrategic, geoeconomic issue for America today.为何只有0.333？我们不妨聚焦中国——这个当前对美国而言最重要的地缘战略与地缘经济议题。Any analysis of China has to start with the fact that as a result of the devastating bursting of China’s housing bubble over the last few years, millions of Chinese have lost significant amounts of money and become burdened with debt. Not surprisingly, they are scrimping on spending. I am told that many of the half-empty restaurants I saw in Beijing and Shanghai when I was there last March are even worse off today.分析中国问题，必须从一个事实入手：过去几年，中国房地产泡沫破裂造成重创，数以百万计的中国人蒙受巨额损失并背负债务。不出意外，他们开始缩减开支。据我所知，去年3月我在北京、上海看到的那些半空的餐厅，如今经营状况更糟了。In short, the world’s second largest economy is having a crash in domestic consumption, so Chinese are also importing even less from abroad. Beijing’s response is not to stimulate domestic consumption — by giving its people something more than the bare minimums in social security and health care — but instead to fund the building of more factories to export goods to the rest of the world.简而言之，这个全球第二大经济体正面临国内消费萎缩，因此中国从海外的进口量也在下降。中国政府本应通过提高社会保障与医疗保障水平（而非最低程度保障）来刺激国内消费，但他们选择的是投入资金建造更多工厂，向世界其他地区出口商品。As one of my Times colleagues covering China, Chris Buckley, reported last week: “Days before meeting President Trump in South Korea, the Chinese leader Xi Jinping laid out the next stage in a strategy of long-term competition with the United States and the West.” The plan “makes clear that Beijing wants to double down” on industrial manufacturing “even as its trading partners worry that China’s expanding exports are undercutting their own industries.”正如《纽约时报》负责中国报道的同事储百亮(Chris Buckley)上周所写：“在赴韩国与特朗普总统会面的几天前，中国领导人习近平阐述了中国下一阶段的战略方向。”该计划“清楚地表明，北京意在进一步加强工业和技术实力，即便中国的贸易伙伴正担忧，中国不断扩张的出口正在削弱他们自身的产业竞争力”。This is utterly reckless on China’s part. As another of my Times colleagues, Keith Bradsher, reported from Beijing last January, China already “produces about a third of the world’s manufactured goods.” That “is more than the United States, Japan, Germany, South Korea and Britain combined.”中国的这一做法完全不计后果。另一位《纽约时报》同事柏凯斯(Keith Bradsher)1月从北京发回报道称，中国“目前生产约三分之一的全球制成品”，这一比例“超过美国、日本、德国、韩国以及英国的总和”。So Trump is responding to a real problem. But as he so often does, he is pushing the wrong answer to the right question. To have real leverage, his tariffs must be part of a quiet grand strategy, but Trump’s fire-ready-aim strategy has been anything but that.因此，特朗普应对的是一个真实存在的问题。但和往常一样，他在正确的问题上给出了错误的答案。要拥有真正的杠杆，关税必须被纳入一套隐秘的总体战略，而特朗普这种先开枪、再瞄准的策略显然与此背道而驰。For starters, if you want to move China, you don’t do it in a loud, haphazard way that is only going to embarrass its leaders and get their backs up. You have long secret negotiations.首先，若想推动中国做出改变，不应采用高调、随意的方式——这种方式只会让中国领导人难堪，进而引发抵触。正确的做法是开展长期的秘密谈判。Second, if you are going to threaten Beijing with economic sanctions, you had better know what it can threaten you with. I can’t confirm this, but I suspect that Trump started announcing his new tariffs on China without ever asking any expert whether China could retaliate in any meaningful way — aside from stopping purchases of American soybeans.其次，若要以经济制裁威胁北京，你必须清楚中国有能力用什么手段来反制。我无法证实这一点，但我怀疑，特朗普在宣布对中国加征新关税时从未咨询过任何专家——除了停止购买美国大豆，中国是否还有其他有效的报复手段。I assume Trump did not ask this, because if he actually knew beforehand that President Xi had an economic weapon that could trump Trump’s tariffs tenfold, it would have been the height of foolishness to impose the huge 145 percent tariff rate on all imports from China that Trump did at one point.我认为特朗普没有咨询过，因为若他事先知道习近平手中握有比他的关税威力大十倍的经济武器，那么特朗普曾一度对所有中国进口商品征收高达145%关税的行为堪称愚蠢至极。That weapon was China’s control of 69 percent of the market share for the mining of the 17 chemical elements known as rare earths, 92 percent of the share for the refining of those elements and 98 percent of rare-earth-based magnet manufacturing, according to estimates from Goldman Sachs. Rare earths are used in all sorts of technologies, but rare-earth-based magnets are essential for most electric vehicle motors, semiconductors, smartphones, M.R.I. machines, drones, radars, fighter jets, missiles and offshore wind turbines.高盛集团的数据显示，这种武器便是中国在稀土领域的主导地位：中国控制着17种稀土元素69%的开采、92%的精炼份额，以及98%的稀土磁体制造。稀土被广泛应用于各类技术领域，而稀土磁体更是大多数电动汽车电机、半导体、智能手机、核磁共振成像设备、无人机、雷达、战斗机、导弹及海上风力涡轮机的核心部件。Had China gone ahead with its order to curtail rare earth exports in response to Trump’s tariffs, it could have significantly slowed down or shut down manufacturing all across America — and the world.若中国为回应特朗普的关税政策真的实施了削减稀土出口，美国乃至全球的制造业都可能大幅放缓，甚至陷入停滞。When Xi laid that card on the table, Trump’s leverage was sharply diminished. He quickly scrambled to have his Treasury secretary persuade China to postpone its curbs on rare earth exports for a year by offering to sharply lower U.S. tariffs and postpone some new bans on high-tech exports to Beijing.当习近平亮出这张底牌后，特朗普的杠杆大幅削弱。他迅速指派财政部长出面劝说中国将稀土出口限制政策推迟一年，作为交换，美国大幅降低关税，并暂缓对中国实施部分高科技产品出口禁令。This was the geoeconomic version of Mike Tyson’s famous dictum that everyone has a plan until he gets punched in the mouth.这正是迈克·泰森那句名言在地缘经济领域的写照：每个人都有自己的计划，直到被人一拳打在脸上。Finally, I repeat, Trump was right to impose tariffs across the board on Chinese imports in his first term — and also now — because China has not been playing fair on trade. It is forcing U.S. companies to compete with Chinese factories heavily subsidized by the government, and that are greatly overproducing manufactured goods for export. Tariffs that are limited in time can be useful in buying the economic running room for American manufacturers to develop their own homegrown replacement industries. But for that you need to have a comprehensive strategy — and Trump has none.最后我要重申，特朗普在第一任期内对中国输美商品全面加征关税本身是正确的——如今亦然——因为中国在贸易中并未遵守公平规则。中国迫使美国企业与享受大量政府补贴、且在出口制成品领域严重产能过剩的中国工厂竞争。有限时效的关税若运用得当，可为美国制造商争取发展空间，发展本土替代产业。但要实现这一目标，必须有一套全面的战略——而特朗普恰恰没有。At a time when American companies are trying to compete with China’s advanced manufacturing exports, Trump is actually making it harder for U.S. firms to hire high-skilled workers from abroad. He has imposed tariffs that make the materials that go into steel more expensive for our manufacturers; he has slashed the very government-funded research essential for us to compete with China, let alone stay ahead of it; and he has imposed tariffs on virtually all of America’s key allies, whose backing we need to create leverage on China through collective action. It’s a completely incoherent strategy.当前，美国企业正努力与中国的高端制造业出口产品竞争，特朗普却让美国公司更难从国外招聘高技能工人。他加征的关税推高了美国制造商所需钢材原材料的成本；他大幅削减政府资助的关键科研项目——而这些项目对美国与中国竞争、甚至保持领先地位至关重要；他还对几乎所有美国的核心盟友加征关税，而我们正需要这些盟友的支持，通过集体行动对华施加压力。这完全是一套前后矛盾的战略。All this said, Xi may have leverage today, but he, too, is playing a risky game. By going nuclear on trade — that is, threatening to curtail rare earth exports — Xi has freaked out the rest of the world and stimulated the U.S. and other key economies to begin a crash program to replace these critical Chinese exports. It will take a long time, but the process has begun.然而，习近平如今或许握有杠杆，但他同样在进行一场高风险博弈。通过动用贸易中的“核武器”——即威胁削减稀土出口，习近平虽令世界其他国家感到恐慌，却也促使美国及其他主要经济体启动紧急计划，寻找中国这些关键出口产品的替代来源。这一过程虽需时日，但已然启动。More broadly, the rest of the world is simply not going to let China take all the manufacturing jobs, especially as A.I. starts to cut increasingly into blue-collar and white-collar work. China is courting a real global backlash.从更广泛的层面来看，世界其他国家绝不会任由中国夺走所有制造业岗位——尤其是在人工智能开始大幅冲击蓝领与白领工作岗位的当下。中国正面临引发全球强烈反制的风险。Given how important the U.S.-China relationship has been for sustaining the relative Great Power peace and prosperity of the world since the late 1970s, Washington and Beijing need a quiet long-term dialogue — not a noisy long-term trade war in which both sides lose.自20世纪70年代末以来，美中关系一直是维系全球大国间相对和平与繁荣的关键。基于这一重要性，美中两国政府需要的是长期而平静的对话——而非一场漫长而喧嚣的双输贸易战。If we really are heading for a divorce in this relationship, oh my goodness, we will miss it when it’s gone.若美中关系真的走向“破裂”，天呐，等到失去时，我们才会念它的好。托马斯·L·弗里德曼(Thomas L. Friedman)是外交事务方面的专栏作者。他1981年加入时报，曾三次获得普利策奖。他著有七本书，包括赢得国家图书奖的《从贝鲁特到耶路撒冷》(From Beirut to Jerusalem)。欢迎在Twitter和Facebook上关注他。翻译：纽约时报中文网点击查看本文英文版。