携手富士康？软银承诺在美投资500亿美元
非常自信、直言不讳的软银(SoftBank)创始人孙正义(Masayoshi Son)一向以雄心过人闻名，他曾与美国最大的电信公司竞争，而且还创建了一个1000亿美元的科技交易基金。
On Tuesday, Mr. Son, a Japanese mogul, struck another big pledge after meeting with President-elect Donald J. Trump: to invest $50 billion in the United States, a move that he said would create some 50,000 jobs.
本周二，日本大亨孙正义在与候任总统唐纳德·J·特朗普(Donald J. Trump)见面后，又许下了一个重大承诺：在美国投资500亿美元，他说此举将创造约5万个工作岗位。
But the $50 billion investment pledge is not an entirely new initiative that SoftBank is undertaking. Instead, the money is projected to come from the Japanese company’s previously announced Vision fund, a $100 billion vehicle for investing in technology companies worldwide.
但是这500亿美元的投资承诺并不是软银的一个全新举动。实际上，这笔钱计划来自于软银之前宣布推出的Vision基金，它拥有1000亿美元资金，用来投资全球各地的科技公司。
The fund — which includes Saudi Arabia, a target of Mr. Trump’s ire during the presidential campaign, as a key partner — was always expected to strike a significant portion of its deals in the United States.
该基金一直以来都打算把重点放在对美国的投资上，沙特阿拉伯是该基金的一个重要伙伴，特朗普在总统竞选期间曾把沙特当作一个泄愤的靶子。
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Mr. Son said the new jobs would come from investing in American start-ups. Mr. Trump later declared on Twitter, “Masa said he would never do this had we (Trump) not won the election!”
孙正义周二对记者说，新工作岗位将来自于他们对美国初创企业的投资。特朗普后来在Twitter上宣布，“正义说，如果我们(特朗普)没有赢得选举，他永远不会这样做!”
Mr. Son’s visit to Trump Tower in Manhattan on Tuesday was the latest outreach by global business leaders to an incoming president seen as friendlier to corporate interests. On Friday, the Trump transition team announced the formation of a business advisory group, led by Stephen A. Schwarzman, the chief executive of the private equity behemoth the Blackstone Group, that would consult monthly with the Trump White House.
孙正义周二对曼哈顿特朗普大厦的拜访，是全球商业领袖对未来总统的最新示好，一些人认为特朗普对企业利益更加有益。上周五，特朗普过渡团队宣布组建一个商业咨询小组，由私募股权投资巨头黑石集团(Blackstone Group)首席执行官苏世民(Stephen A. Schwarzman)担任领导，在特朗普任内每月与白宫开展讨论。
The advisory group was noticeably shy of technology names; Mr. Son is perhaps the most prominent tech executive so far to have met with the president-elect.
咨询小组里没有什么科技业大牌;孙正义可能是迄今为止与特朗普见过面的最有名的科技高管。
Although it has its headquarters in Japan, SoftBank has deep roots in the United States. It is the majority owner of the wireless operator Sprint, which two years ago unsuccessfully pursued a takeover bid for T-Mobile. That effort was effectively blocked by the Obama administration on antitrust grounds.
软银虽然总部设在日本，但在美国有深厚的根基。它拥有无线运营商Sprint的大多数股权，Sprint两年前试图收购T-Mobile未果。奥巴马政府以反托拉斯为由对收购进行了阻拦。
Mr. Son was not expected to discuss specific issues with Mr. Trump during their meeting, including the prospects of renewing a Sprint bid for its rival, according to a person briefed on the matter. Shares of Sprint and T-Mobile briefly rose Tuesday afternoon, before giving up their gains.
据一个了解内情的人说，没人预计孙正义在与特朗普会面的时候会讨论具体问题，包括重启Sprint对T-Mobile的收购。这两家公司的股价周二下午短暂上涨，之后回吐了涨幅。
Beyond what Mr. Trump and Mr. Son said, “we aren’t able to say more,” a SoftBank spokesman in Tokyo, Matthew Nicholson, said.
除了特朗普和孙正义自己的说法，“我们无法透露更多情况，”软银在东京的发言人马修·尼克尔森(Matthew Nicholson)说。
“I just came to celebrate his new job,” Mr. Son, 59, told reporters at Trump Tower. “I said: ‘This is great. The U.S. will become great again.’ ”
“我只是来庆贺他获得了新工作，”59岁的孙正义告诉特朗普大厦的记者。“我说：‘这很棒。美国将会再度伟大。’”
Such bold talk is customary from the American-educated Mr. Son, who has built one of Japan’s biggest personal fortunes through sometimes brash deal-making. SoftBank, which began life as a software distributor, became one of Japan’s biggest phone service companies through shrewd negotiations that gave the company early exclusive rights to the iPhone. It has since become a global empire with stakes in the likes of Sprint and Alibaba Group of China and in a welter of start-ups in the United States and abroad.
在美国接受教育的孙正义很习惯这种夸张的说法，他通过商业交易成为了日本最大的富豪之一，其中一些交易很大胆。软银最初是一家软件经销商，通过精明的谈判成为日本最大的电信服务公司之一，早年拥有iPhone的专卖权。现在软银已经成为一个全球性的帝国，拥有Sprint、中国阿里巴巴集团，以及美国和其他国家各种初创公司的股份。
This year, Mr. Son struck a $32 billion takeover of ARM Holdings, a British chip designer whose products sit at the heart of devices like the iPhone.
今年，孙正义斥资320亿美元收购了英国芯片设计公司ARM Holdings。该公司的产品是iPhone等设备的核心组件。
Like the president-elect, Mr. Son has been known for sometimes impolitic remarks. As Mr. Son sought to compete against Verizon and AT&T with his investment in Sprint, he compared the quality of American wireless service to the air quality of Beijing. And he threatened to set himself on fire in the offices of Japan’s telecommunications regulator on at least one occasion.
就像特朗普一样，孙正义有时也表现得言语失当。当Sprint试图与Verizon和AT&T进行竞争，孙正义将美国无线服务的质量类比为北京的空气质量。他威胁要在日本电信监管机构的办公室里自焚的事情至少发生过一次。
In speaking with reporters alongside Mr. Trump on Tuesday, Mr. Son clutched what appeared to be a presentation from the meeting. One page featured the logos of both SoftBank and Foxconn, the Taiwanese manufacturing giant that assembles Apple’s iPhone. On the page — and circled — was the text committing to investing $50 billion in the United States and generating 50,000 jobs over the next four years.
本周二与特朗普一起见记者的时候，孙正义似乎把会议中的演示内容搬了出来。页面上有软银和富士康的标志。富士康是台湾制造巨头，为苹果公司装配iPhone。页面上用圆圈标出了未来四年内在美国投资500亿美元，创造5万个工作机会的承诺。
Below it appeared to be Mr. Son’s signature.
下面似乎是孙正义的签名。
Foxconn said in a statement that it was in preliminary discussions about a potential American expansion, adding that the scale had not yet been decided. Foxconn has said in the past that it plans to expand its limited operations in the United States.
富士康在一份声明中说，它正在对在美国的潜在扩张计划进行初步讨论，但其规模尚无定论。富士康过去曾表示要扩大其在美国的有限的业务。
Any Foxconn investment is not likely to mean a major flow of jobs back to America. The company has been plowing funds into automation and has said in the past that it would invest in a plant to build robots in Pennsylvania, indicating that new American jobs would probably be higher-end and limited in number.
富士康在美国进行的任何投资都不太可能意味着有大量的工作岗位回流美国。该公司一直把资金投入到自动化领域，之前曾表示要在宾夕法尼亚州投资一家建造机器人的工厂，这表明美国的新岗位可能会比较高端，数量有限。
Foxconn employs about one million workers in China. But many of those jobs are low skilled, and as overall wages have risen in China, their pay levels have become less appealing to workers there. Maintaining enough staffing to meet production needs can be a challenge.
富士康在中国拥有约100万名工人。但是很多岗位对技能要求都很低，随着中国工资整体水平的上升，富士康的工资水平对中国工人不太有吸引力。留住足够多的员工来满足生产需求可能会是一个挑战。
