Having watched Joe Biden retain most of the tariffs he inherited, America’s trading partners have been fond of complaining the US president is “continuity Trump” and wondering whether Kamala Harris will be continuity Biden. The first epithet was never entirely fair: Trump’s focus was on closing trade deficits and gaining negotiating leverage, Biden’s mainly about industrial policy. Now Trump is threatening a massive and damaging escalation of trade protection, Harris only has to keep Biden’s policies in place, as she probably will, and she will look positively free-trade Clintonesque (Bill not Hillary) in comparison.
看到乔•拜登(Joe Biden)保留了特朗普(Trump)实施的大部分关税，美国的贸易伙伴们老爱抱怨这位美国总统是“特朗普沿袭者”，继而疑惑卡玛拉•哈里斯(Kamala Harris)是否会成为“拜登沿袭者”。第一个绰号是不太公平的：特朗普把重点放在消除贸易逆差和获得谈判筹码上，拜登则主要放在产业政策上。如今特朗普威胁要大规模升级贸易保护措施，那将具有破坏性后果，而哈里斯只须保留拜登的政策——她很可能会这么做。而且，和特朗普相比，她将展现出正面的克林顿风格（这里指比尔•克林顿而不是希拉里•克林顿），即倡导自由贸易。