经济学人双语精读：美国及其盟友能否抱团削弱美元？

2024年8月13日 文摘

相见恨晚的英语微信公众号：田间小站

Free exchange
自由交流

Could America and its allies club together to weaken the dollar?
美国及其盟友能否抱团削弱美元？

China would not be happy
中国可能不会高兴

THE PLAZA HOTEL has New York glamour in spades. Sitting at a corner of Central Park, it was the setting for “Home Alone 2”, a film that came out in 1992 in which a child finds himself lost in the metropolis. He takes up residence in one of the hotel’s suites, thanks to his father’s credit card, and briefly lives a life of luxury. Donald Trump, the hotel’s owner at the time, has a walk-on part, which was the outcome of a hard bargain. According to the film’s director, he demanded to appear as a condition for giving the filmmakers access to the hotel. This was not the first deal in which the venue had played a part. Seven years earlier it hosted negotiators for the Plaza Accord, which was agreed on by America, Britain, France, Japan and West Germany, and aimed for a depreciation of the dollar against the yen and the Deutschmark.
广场酒店（Plaza Hotel）充分体现了纽约的魅力。酒店坐落在中央公园的一角，是1992年上映的电影《小鬼当家2》的拍摄地，该片讲述的是小主人公迷失在纽约的经历。他用爸爸的信用卡入住了酒店套房，短暂享受了一下奢华的生活。当时的酒店老板特朗普客串了一个角色，这是一番艰苦讨价还价后的结果。据导演称，特朗普要求让自己出镜才肯允许摄制组进入酒店拍摄。这并不是该酒店参与的第一笔交易。再往回倒退七年，它接待了达成《广场协议》的美国、英国、法国、日本和西德的谈判代表，该协议的目标是让美元对日元和德国马克贬值。

  • glamour 指“魅力、吸引力、诱惑力”，主要指一种令人兴奋却又往往是虚幻浪漫的吸引力（参见：小词详解 | glamour）
  • metropolis 大都会；大城市；首都；首府
  • 拓展学习：小词详解 | trump

Echoes of the period can be heard today. In the mid-1980s America was booming. Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts had led to a wide fiscal deficit and the Federal Reserve had raised interest rates to bring inflation to heel. As a consequence, the dollar soared. American policymakers worried about a loss of competitiveness to an up-and-coming Asian economy (Japan then, China today). The Plaza Accord was designed to address what officials saw as the persistent mispricing of the dollar. Robert Lighthizer, Mr Trump’s trade adviser, has mulled a repeat. The accord set a precedent for “significant negotiation between America’s allies to address unfair global practices”, he wrote in “No Trade is Free”, a book published last year. Mr Trump’s team is reportedly considering options to devalue the dollar if the former president returns to office.
当年的诉求今天仍在回响。20世纪80年代中期，美国经济繁荣。里根的减税政策造成了巨大的财政赤字，美联储提高了利率以抑制通货膨胀。结果导致美元飙升。美国的政策制定者担心，面对新兴的亚洲经济体（当时的日本，今天的中国），美国将失去竞争力。《广场协议》是为了解决官员眼中美元持续错误定价的问题。特朗普的贸易顾问罗伯特·莱特希泽（Robert Lighthizer）已经在仔细考虑让它重演。他在去年出版的《没有自由贸易那回事》（No Trade is Free）一书中写道，该协议提供了“美国盟友之间为解决不公平的全球做法而展开重大谈判”的先例。据报道，特朗普的团队正在琢磨，一旦这位前总统重新上台，可以采取哪些操作来让美元贬值。