经济学人下载:美国的大规模干扰性武器(3)

First, instead of using tariffs as a tool to extract specific economic concessions, they are being continuously deployed to create a climate of instability with America’s trading partners. The objective of the new Mexican tariffs—fewer migrants crossing the Rio Grande—has nothing to do with trade. And they breach the spirit of USMCA, a free-trade deal signed by the White House only six months ago, which will replace NAFTA (Congress has yet to ratify it). Alongside these big fights is a constant barrage of petty activity. Officials have skirmished over foreign washing machines and Canadian softwood lumber imports.
第一，关税不是用来迫使特定经济让步的工具，而是不断被用来制造与美国贸易伙伴之间的不稳定气氛。新墨西哥关税的目标——减少穿越里约热内卢格兰德河的移民——与贸易无关。而且他们违反了新北美贸易协定USMCA的精神，USMCA是白宫在六个月前签署的自由贸易协定，将取代北美自由贸易协定NAFTA (国会尚未批准)。除了这些大的行动，还有一连串的琐碎活动。官员们在外国洗衣机和加拿大软木进口问题上发生了冲突。

Second, the scope of activity has been extended beyond physical goods by weaponising America’s network. Outright enemies such as Iran and Venezuela face tighter sanctions—last year 1,500 people, firms and vessels were added to the list, a record figure. The rest of the world faces a new regime for tech and finance. An executive order prohibits transactions in semiconductors and software made by foreign adversaries, and a law passed last year known as firrmapolices foreign investment into Silicon Valley. If a firm is blacklisted, banks usually refuse to deal with it, cutting it off from the dollar payments system. That is crippling—as two firms, ZTE and Rusal, discovered, briefly, last year.
第二，通过将美国的全球化网络武器化，其活动范围已经超出了实物商品。像伊朗和委内瑞拉这样的宿敌面临着更严厉的制裁——去年有1500的个人、公司和船只被列入制裁名单，创历史新高。世界其他地区面临着新的科技和金融体系。一项行政命令禁止外国对手从事半导体和软件交易，去年通过的一项名为外国投资风险评估现代化法案”(FIRRMA)的法律禁止外国投资者进入硅谷。如果一家公司被列入黑名单，银行通常会拒绝交易，将其从美元支付系统中剔除。正如去年中兴通讯和俄铝这两家公司的发现，这一趋势正在削弱。

Such tools used to be reserved for times of war: the legal techniques used for surveillance of the payments system were developed to hunt al-Qaeda. Now a “national emergency” has been declared in tech. Officials have discretion to define what is a threat. Though they often clobber specific firms, such as Huawei, others are running scared. If you run a global company, are you sure your Chinese clients are not about to be blacklisted?
这些工具过去是为战争时期保留的：用于监视支付系统的法律技术是为了追捕基地组织而开发的。如今，科技界宣布进入“国家紧急状态”。官员们有权决定什么是威胁。尽管政府经常痛击特定的公司，比如华为，但其他公司却很害怕。如果你经营一家跨国公司，你确定你的中国客户不会被列入黑名单吗？