经济学人：新美帝国主义

作者：经济学人           来源：一天一篇外刊

The new American imperialismTHE TRADITIONAL?point of an inaugural address is to transcend the politics of the campaign and draw the country together. Donald Trump’s second inaugural?was not that. But it stuck with tradition in other ways—it’s just that the traditions in question were much older.

传统上，美国总统在就职演说中应当超越竞选过程中产生的政治分歧和理念冲突，强调国家团结和共同利益，但唐纳德-特朗普就要剑走偏锋。他只遵循了仪式上的传统（而且他遵循的仪式要古老得多）。

The only one of his predecessors President Trump spent any time discussing—other than excoriating the administration of the outgoing Joe Biden—was William McKinley, in his telling “a great president”, though he is not one many Americans would put in their pantheon。

在就职演说中，除了抨击即将卸任的乔-拜登（Joe Biden）政府之外，提到最多的就是前总统威廉·麦金利。尽管很多美国人不会把他列入万神殿，但特朗普依然把他称为最伟大的总统。

McKinley, who was inaugurated in 1897, presided over the negotiations that created the Panama Canal. He loved?tariffs, both as a way to fund the government and to protect domestic industry. And he courted, and was courted by, robber barons of the Gilded Age.

麦金利（McKinley）于1897年担任总统，期间主导了巴拿马运河的谈判。他对关税非常热衷，认为关税不仅是政府财政的来源，也是保护国内工业的重要手段。此外，他与“镀金时代”的富豪们关系密切，既主动寻求他们的支持，也赢得了他们的青睐。

President Trump has a thing about the Panama Canal. He thinks the terms of the treaty signing it over to its host country have been broken, and that it is controlled by China (it is not, though the Chinese government has gained influence in Panama). The single most attention-grabbing line in the speech, at least for those who are used to having an American president who respects other countries’ sovereignty, was: “we are taking it back.”

特朗普总统对巴拿马运河有着特殊的关注，他认为美国与巴拿马签署的关于将运河交由巴拿马管理的条约中的某些条款已经遭到违反。他声称目前运河的控制权已经被他国掌握（尽管实际上并非如此，他国在巴拿马确实获得了一定的影响力）。在他的演讲中，最引人注目的话是：“我们要把它夺回来。”这句话显得尤为刺耳，因为它传达了一种强硬的立场，暗示美国有意重新掌控巴拿马运河。对于那些习惯于美国总统尊重其他国家主权的人来说，这句话显得极为激进，似乎在挑战巴拿马作为主权国家的独立性及其对运河的管理权。

The treaty ceding the Panama canal was drawn up during Jimmy Carter’s presidency in 1977. Even back then this was opposed by conservatives as an unpatriotic betrayal by naive liberals, a perennial theme of Mr Trump’s (it is not just his taste in music that regularly defaults to the era of the Village People). To Panama, where the 82nd Airborne Division dropped in a decade later, when Mr Trump was in his 40s, this line sounds more menacing than many Americans realise.

1977年，时任总统吉米·卡特与巴拿马签署了运河归还协议。即使在当时，保守派对此条约也表示强烈反对，认为这是自由派出于天真和理想主义的背叛行为。特朗普常常提及这一话题（他的音乐品味似乎也常常回到“乡村音乐”时代，这暗示他在许多方面对过去怀有怀旧情感）。特朗普提出“夺回巴拿马运河”的言论，对巴拿马人民而言，远比许多美国人意识到的更具威胁性。因为在1989年，美国第82空降师曾在特朗普四十多岁时空降巴拿马，进行军事干预。

So does the talk of territorial expansion, a theme no president has pursued seriously in over a century. The last president who increased America’s acreage substantially, as it happens, was William McKinley. Territories including Cuba, Hawaii and the Philippines were added to America in his first term, the latter as a consequence of a victory over Spain. “The truth is I didn’t want the Philippines,” McKinley said, “and when they came to us, as a gift from the gods, I did not know what to do with them.” America got bogged down fighting an insurrection there. For Mr Trump the point of territorial expansion is clear. (And extraterrestrial too—he thinks it is the country’s manifest destiny to plant its flag on Mars.) America must be “a growing nation” once again.

一个多世纪以来，没有一位总统认真对待过领土扩张的话题。上一位大幅增加美国领土面积的总统是威廉-麦金利。在他的第一个任期内，包括古巴、夏威夷和菲律宾在内的领土都被纳入美国版图，菲律宾成为美国领土是美国战胜西班牙后获得的。然而，麦金利总统在回忆这件事时说：“事实上，我并不想要菲律宾，当它们像上天的礼物一样送到我们面前时，我不知道该如何处理。最终，美国在菲律宾陷入了与当地叛乱分子的长期战争，局势变得复杂和困难。对特朗普先生来说，领土扩张的意义是显而易见的。(他认为将国旗插上火星是美国的天命）。美国必须再次成为 "成长中的国家?"。

After McKinley was assassinated by an anarchist, that approach to protecting manufacturing became associated with the Democratic Party. The McKinley formula combined what is now seen as a left-leaning policy with a closeness to big business associated with the right. Mr Trump, like McKinley, brings them back together in his Republican Party. McKinley’s 1896 campaign received a $250,000 donation from J.P. Morgan and the same amount from Standard Oil (approaching $10m apiece in 2025 money). Mr Trump’s inauguration reserved prominent seats for Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, all of whom gave money to the inaugural committee. The president announced the arrival of a new “golden age”. But on tariffs, territorial expansion and a fixation with Panama what he seems to want is a return to the gilded one

在麦金利遭到无政府主义者刺杀后，保护制造业的政策开始与民主党产生关联。麦金利的政策将如今被视为偏向左派的做法与亲近大企业、与右翼相关的立场结合在一起。特朗普在他的共和党内也重新将这两者结合起来，类似于麦金利。麦金利在1896年的竞选中获得了来自J.P.摩根和标准石油各250,000美元的捐款（按2025年的价值，接近1000万美元）。特朗普的就职典礼上，杰夫·贝索斯、埃隆·马斯克和马克·扎克伯格等人也被安排在显眼的位置，他们都向就职委员会捐赠了资金。在就职演说上特朗普宣称进入一个新的“黄金时代”，但在关税、领土扩张和对巴拿马的执着方面，似乎更想回归镀金时代的做法。

作者：经济学人           来源：一天一篇外刊