Why China Is Worried About Trump’s Tariffs on Mexico
中国为何担心特朗普对墨西哥征收关税
Officials in Beijing are increasingly worried that President Trump’s tariffs on Mexico may be the start of a broad campaign to force developing countries around the world to choose between trade with the United States or with China.
北京的官员越来越担心，特朗普总统对墨西哥征收的关税可能是一场广泛行动的开始，目的是迫使世界上的发展中国家在与美国或与中国进行贸易之间做出选择。
Ever since Mr. Trump imposed extensive tariffs on goods from China during his first term, companies have been investing heavily in countries like Mexico, Vietnam and Thailand to assemble Chinese components into goods for shipment to the United States. Doing final assembly in these countries offered a back door to the U.S. market regardless of trade frictions between Washington and Beijing.
自从特朗普第一个任期内对来自中国的商品征收广泛关税以来，企业一直在墨西哥、越南和泰国等国大举投资，将中国的零部件组装成商品，然后运往美国。不管中美之间的贸易摩擦如何，在这些国家的最后组装为进入美国市场提供了后门。
China’s trade surplus with the United States has shrunk by almost a third since 2018. But Chinese exports to developing countries have skyrocketed. China now sells 11 times as much to Mexico as China buys from it. Those sales include Chinese auto parts assembled in Mexico in cars destined for dealerships in the United States.
自2018年以来，中国对美国的贸易顺差缩减了近三分之一。但中国对发展中国家的出口一路飙升。中国现在对墨西哥的出口是从墨西哥进口的11倍。这些出口产品包括在墨西哥组装的中国汽车零部件，它们被用于组装交付给美国经销商的汽车。
The concern now in Beijing is that Washington’s pressure could force Mexico to close its market to Chinese goods in exchange for a reprieve from American tariffs on trade with Mexico. At stake for Mexico, among other things, are the jobs created by its abundant trade with the United States.
北京现在担心的是，华盛顿的压力可能会迫使墨西哥对中国商品关闭市场，以换取美国对墨西哥贸易关税的暂缓。对墨西哥来说至关重要的是与美国的大量贸易所创造的就业机会。
Mr. Trump could then use Mexico as a model to demand other countries take sides in the trade war between the United States and China. That would further limit Chinese access to the huge American market by disrupting other routes to the United States.
然后，特朗普可以以墨西哥为样板，要求其他国家在美中贸易战中站队。这将扰乱其他进入美国市场的途径，进一步限制中国进入巨大的美国市场。
Because Mr. Trump renegotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement during his first term, very few businesspeople or officials in China expected him to start his second term by threatening steep tariffs on Mexico. Several unique characteristics of the trade and legal arrangements that China has with Mexico mean that China’s indirect access to the American market is particularly at risk during the ongoing confrontation between Mr. Trump and Mexico.
由于特朗普在第一个任期内重新谈判了北美自由贸易协定，中国很少有商界人士或官员预料到他会在第二任期伊始就对墨西哥威胁征收高额关税。中国与墨西哥之间的贸易和法律安排有一些独特之处，这意味着在特朗普与墨西哥的持续对抗中，中国间接进入美国市场的机会尤其岌岌可危。
Especially worrisome for Chinese officials is an obscure loophole that was baked into the World Trade Organization’s rules when the Geneva-based organization was created in 1995. The loophole allows Mexico — and potentially dozens of low-income and middle-income countries — to legally raise tariffs steeply and suddenly on Chinese goods, while Beijing would have no right to retaliate.
尤其令中国官员担忧的是，世界贸易组织于1995年在日内瓦成立时，其规则中存在一个鲜为人知的漏洞。这个漏洞允许墨西哥——可能还有几十个低收入和中等收入国家——合法地突然大幅提高对中国商品的关税，而北京无权报复。
Chinese officials alluded to their nervousness about maintaining access to developing markets during the weeklong annual session of China’s legislature, which ended on Tuesday. Wang Wentao, the commerce minister, noted at a news conference that slightly more than half of China’s international trade was with countries belonging to the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s outreach to less affluent countries across Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa and Latin America.
在周二结束的为期一周的中国立法机构年度会议上，中国官员间接表达了他们对维持发展中国家市场准入的紧张情绪。商务部长王文涛在新闻发布会上指出，中国国际贸易的一半以上是与“一带一路”倡议的成员国进行的，该倡议是中国面向亚洲、东欧、非洲和拉丁美洲不太富裕的国家开展的对外合作计划。
“We did not put all our eggs in one basket, which shows the strong resilience of China’s foreign trade,” Mr. Wang said, without mentioning that many of China’s exports to these countries eventually end up in the United States.
“我们没有把鸡蛋放在一个篮子里，更体现了我们中国外贸的强大韧性，”王文涛说，但他没有提到，中国对这些国家的许多出口最终流向美国。
He took care to point out that 34 percent of China’s trade was with countries with which it has free trade agreements. That is significant because these agreements, mainly with countries in Southeast Asia, bind signatories not to raise tariffs suddenly.
他特别指出，中国34%的贸易是与那些同它签订了自由贸易协定的国家进行的。这一点很重要，因为这些协定（主要与东南亚国家签订）要求签署国不得突然提高关税。
Mr. Wang called for more such agreements with “willing countries and regions.”
王文涛呼吁与“有意愿的国家和地区”达成更多此类协定。
Mexico is not one of the 27 countries that has signed a free-trade agreement with China, so the Mexican government can raise tariffs on Chinese goods.
墨西哥不是与中国签署自由贸易协定的27个国家之一，所以墨西哥政府可以提高对中国商品的关税。
Mexico is also one of several dozen developing countries that were members of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which preceded the creation of the W.T.O. These countries reached a special deal at the founding of the W.T.O., making very few binding commitments to reduce their tariffs. They were instead encouraged to gradually lower tariffs voluntarily.
墨西哥也是关税与贸易总协定成员国中的几十个发展中国家之一，该协定是世贸组织的前身。这些国家在世贸组织成立时达成了一项特殊协议，几乎没有做出降低关税的约束性承诺。相反，它们被鼓励自愿逐步降低关税。
Mexico has reduced its average tariff to 7 percent, according to the W.T.O. But Mexico’s average “bound” tariff — which it could start charging immediately by simply sending a notification to the W.T.O. — is 36 percent.
根据世贸组织的数据，墨西哥已将其平均关税降至7%，但墨西哥的平均“约束”关税是36%，只要向世贸组织发出通知，墨西哥就可以立即开始征收这一关税。
If Mexico were to raise its tariffs on China, many other countries with the same W.T.O. deal could face U.S. pressure not to become conduits for Chinese goods. Brazil, for example, applies tariffs of 11 percent on average, but its bound tariff is 31 percent.
如果墨西哥提高对中国的关税，许多与世贸组织有同样协议的国家可能会面临美国的压力，要求它们不要成为中国商品的变通渠道。例如，巴西的平均关税为11%，但其约束关税为31%。
W.T.O. rules bar countries from raising tariffs against a single country. While Mr. Trump has ignored the rules, most other countries, including Mexico, China and the members of the European Union, try to avoid doing so except when another country starts a trade war.
世贸组织规则禁止各国对单一国家提高关税。尽管特朗普无视这些规则，但墨西哥、中国和欧盟成员国等大多数其他国家都试图避免这样做，除非另一个国家发动贸易战。
But the W.T.O. does allow countries to raise tariffs to their highest bound ceilings provided that the increase applies to all imports of the targeted product from around the world. China exports almost all of the world’s supply in many categories of manufactured goods. That makes it possible for developing countries to raise their applied tariffs in these categories and hit almost exclusively goods from China.
但是，世贸组织确实允许各国将关税提高至最高上限，前提是这种提高适用于从世界各地进口的所有目标产品。在许多种类的制成品中，中国的出口几乎占全球供应的全部。这使得发展中国家有可能提高这些类别的适用关税，几乎只打击来自中国的商品。
China’s hope is that other large trading nations will refuse to choose between China and the United States.
中国希望其他贸易大国拒绝在中美之间选边站队。
“I don’t think those close trading partners with China will pick a side, especially those with free trade agreements with China, even if they have high binding tariffs at the W.T.O.,” said Tu Xinquan, the dean of the China Institute for W.T.O. Studies at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing. Mao founded the university in 1951 to train and advise China’s trade negotiators.
“我不认为那些与中国关系密切的贸易伙伴会选边站，尤其是那些与中国有自由贸易协定的国家，即使它们拥有世贸组织的高额约束关税，”北京对外经济贸易大学中国WTO研究院院长屠新泉说。这所大学于1951年由毛泽东创立，为中国的贸易谈判人员提供培训和咨询。
Unlike leaders in Canada or the European Union, President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico has said little publicly during the recent trade dispute, even as her government is heavily focused on the issue. Mexico’s ambassador to China, Jesús Seade, helped create the W.T.O. in the early 1990s and played a central role in Mexico’s renegotiation of NAFTA with President Trump in 2018.
与加拿大或欧盟的领导人不同，墨西哥总统克劳迪娅·辛鲍姆在最近的贸易争端中几乎没有公开表态，尽管她的政府非常关注这个问题。墨西哥驻华大使赫苏斯·塞亚德曾在20世纪90年代初参与创建世界贸易组织，并在2018年墨西哥与特朗普总统重新谈判北美自由贸易协定的过程中发挥了核心作用。
China is fortunate that Vietnam, its biggest partner for indirect exports to the United States, trades under different rules than Mexico because it did not join the W.T.O. until 2007. The trade organization has required developing countries that joined after 1995 to accept lower ceilings on their bound tariffs.
对中国来说幸运的是，中国对美间接出口的最大合作伙伴越南直到2007年才加入世贸组织，其贸易规则与墨西哥不同。世贸组织要求1995年以后加入的发展中国家接受较低的约束关税上限。
Vietnam applies an average tariff of 9 percent, and the average bound tariff it could apply goes up to only 12 percent. Industrialized countries, like Canada, also have low bound tariffs that limit their ability to charge more on goods from China.
越南的平均关税为9%，可以征收的平均约束关税最高仅为12%。像加拿大这样的工业化国家也有较低的限制关税，这限制了它们对来自中国的商品收取更多关税的能力。
China’s economy is highly dependent on a large and ever-widening trade surplus, which reached almost $1 trillion last year. Nearly all of China’s exports are manufactured goods, and its surplus in these goods equaled roughly a tenth of its entire economy last year.
中国经济高度依赖庞大且不断增长的贸易顺差，去年中国的贸易顺差接近7万亿人民币。中国几乎所有的出口都是制成品，去年这些产品的顺差约占其整个经济的十分之一。
That is a level the United States did not attain even after World War II, when American industry quickly reverted to civilian production and ramped up exports as much of the rest of the world lay in ruins.
美国即使在“二战”后也未曾有过这样的水平，当时美国工业迅速转向民用生产，并大幅增加出口，而世界上其他大部分地区都沦为废墟。
China is dependent on rising exports because a housing market crash has left Chinese households reluctant to spend, limiting the economy’s ability to grow in other ways.
中国之所以依赖于不断增长的出口，是因为房地产市场崩盘导致中国家庭不愿消费，从而限制了经济在其他方面实现增长的能力。
Another vulnerability is that much of China’s trade surplus is with developing countries. These countries, in turn, rely on running their own trade surpluses with the United States to pay for the goods they import from China, drawing the ire of Mr. Trump.
另一个弱点是，中国的贸易顺差大部分来自发展中国家。而这些国家依靠自己对美国的贸易顺差来支付从中国进口的商品，这招致了特朗普的不满。
