美财长称中美贸易谈判“破裂”，遭两党立法者质疑
华盛顿——美中贸易战在周四没有出现任何缓和迹象，与此同时，美国财政部长史蒂芬·马努钦(Steven Mnuchin)告诉立法者，目前没有明确的解决途径，而北京方面则抨击美国政府的行动。
Mr. Mnuchin, who has tried to avoid calling the trade tensions with China a “war,” said talks with Beijing had “broken down” and suggested it was now up to China to come to the table with concessions. President Trump, speaking in Brussels on Thursday, described the trade talks with China as a “nasty” battle.
马努钦曾试图避免把同中国的贸易紧张局势称为“战争”，他说与北京的谈判已经“破裂”，并表示现在轮到中国在谈判中让步。特朗普总统于周四在布鲁塞尔发表讲话，称与中国的贸易谈判是一场“讨厌的”战争。
The Chinese, meanwhile, accused the United States of “acting erratically” and said the administration had “blatantly abandoned the consensuses that two sides have reached and insisted on fighting a trade war with China.”
与此同时，中国人指责美国“反复无常、出尔反尔”，并表示特朗普政府“公然背弃双方达成的共识，坚持与中方打一场贸易战”。
Republicans and Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee showed little patience for Mr. Mnuchin’s answers about the lack of progress, repeatedly pressing him about whether there was a strategy to resolve the trade war and expressing concern that it was starting to hurt parts of the economy.
众议院金融服务委员会(House Financial Services Committee)的共和党人和民主党人对马努钦关于没有进展的回答感到很不耐烦，一再追问是否有解决贸易战的战略，并表示担心贸易战开始伤害部分经济。
The White House has already hit Beijing with tariffs on $34 billion worth of imports and China has responded with a similar amount of levies on American goods, including soybeans, pork and cars. On Tuesday, the administration outlined tariffs on another $200 billion worth of Chinese products, including many consumer products like furniture, dog leashes and fish.
白宫已向价值340亿美元的中国进口商品征收了关税，中国也对包括大豆、猪肉和汽车在内的美国商品征收了相似数额的税。周二，政府宣布另外对价值2000亿美元的中国产品征收关税，其中包括家具、狗牵引绳和鱼类等消费品。
“Is there a master plan?” asked Representative Mia Love, Republican of Utah. “I implore you to work to end this thing soon.”
“是否有总体规划?”犹他州共和党众议员米娅·洛夫(Mia Love)问。“我恳请你尽快结束这件事。”
Lawmakers from both parties have been bombarded with complaints about tariffs from soybean farmers, carmakers, nail manufacturers and other businesses about the fate of their industries as they are starting to face higher steel and aluminum costs and feel the pain of retaliation from Europe and China.
两党立法者接到大豆种植者、汽车制造商、钉子制造商和其他企业的大量投诉，他们面临更高的钢铝成本，来自欧洲和中国的报复令他们蒙受损失，因此担心自己所在行业的命运。
On Thursday they pressed Mr. Mnuchin, who is seen as a voice of moderation on trade in the administration, to persuade Mr. Trump to back away from the trade war.
马努钦被视为政府内贸易方面的温和派，周四，立法者们向马努钦施压，要求他说服特朗普放弃贸易战。
Representative Jeb Hensarling, Republican of Texas and chairman of the committee, told Mr. Mnuchin that he was deeply concerned about the state of global trade and signs that business optimism was starting to wane. He said that he was not impressed with the lone trade deal that Mr. Trump has struck, with South Korea, and warned that the strong run of economic growth was at risk.
德克萨斯州共和党众议员兼委员会主席杰布·亨萨林(Jeb Hensarling)告诉马努钦，他对全球贸易状况以及商业乐观情绪开始减弱的迹象深表关注。他说，特朗普达成的唯一一项贸易协议，即与韩国的协议，并未给他留下深刻印象;他警告说，强劲的经济增长面临风险。
“I would just assure you we very much are monitoring the impact on the economy of all these trade issues,” Mr. Mnuchin said in response to questions about the economic effect.
“我只想向你们保证，我们非常关注所有这些贸易问题对经济的影响，”马努钦在回答有关经济影响的问题时说。
Mr. Mnuchin defended the administration’s approach and insisted that economic growth remained Mr. Trump’s priority, which did nothing to mollify Mr. Hensarling, a close ally of the president.
马努钦为政府的做法辩护，并坚称，经济增长仍然是特朗普的优先事项，而这无助于安抚总统的亲密盟友亨萨林先生。
“I appreciate the words; I am concerned about the deeds,” he said.
“我感谢这些话;我担心这些行为，”他说。
Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee also repeatedly — and exasperatedly — pushed another Trump administration official to detail a strategy for prevailing in the trade dispute during a hearing on Thursday morning.
参议院外交关系委员会(Senate Foreign Relations Committee)的共和党人与民主党人在周四上午的听证会上，多次愤怒地要求另一位特朗普政府官员详细说明贸易争端中的整体战略。
“The administration needs to explain to Congress where this is all headed,” Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee and the committee’s chairman, told Manisha Singh, an assistant secretary at the State Department, as she prepared to testify.
“政府需要向国会解释一切是在走向何方，”田纳西州共和党参议员、委员会主席鲍勃·科克尔(Bob Corker)对准备作证的美国国务院助理国务卿马尼什·辛格(Manisha Singh)说。
“To my knowledge, not a single person is able to articulate where this is headed, nor what the plans are, nor what the strategy is,” Mr. Corker said.
“据我所知，没有一个人能够明确说出这个方向，也没有人能说清其中的计划和战略，”科克尔说。
The committee’s top Democrat, Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, told Ms. Singh at another point that “I don’t understand what the pathway is here, at the end of the day.”
该委员会的民主党领袖、新泽西参议员罗伯特·梅南德兹(Robert Menendez)在不同时间对辛格说，“到头来，我还是不明白这其中的方法是什么。”
Ms. Singh, who leads the department’s Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs, defended the administration’s moves. “Our endgame is for China to change its behavior,” she said.
领导国务院经济和商业事务局(Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs)的辛格为政府的举措作出辩护。“我们的最终目标是让中国改变做法，”她说。
After Ms. Singh tried to explain the administration’s approach, Mr. Corker replied, “That enlightened us in no way.”
在辛格试图阐释政府的措施后，科克回应，“这对我们毫无启发。”
While Mr. Trump prizes unpredictability, his approach to trade agreements is sowing uncertainty that many business leaders, officials, lawmakers and others worry could undercut an otherwise booming economy.
在特朗普青睐不可预测性的同时，他对贸易协定的态度正在播下不确定性的种子，许多商业领导人、官员、议员及其他人担忧这可能会削弱原本能蓬勃发展的经济。
In an interview with the radio program “Marketplace” on Thursday, the Federal Reserve chairman, Jerome H. Powell, said that “we don’t know” how the trade dispute will play out, but that it could harm the recovery.
在周四接受电台节目“市场”(Marketplace)的访问中，美联储主席杰罗姆·H·鲍威尔(Jerome H. Powell)表示“我们不知道”贸易争端会演变成什么样，但认为可能会对经济复苏构成伤害。
“I wouldn’t want to, you know, dive into a bunch of hypotheticals here,” Mr. Powell said, “but I would say, you can imagine situations which would be very challenging, where inflation is going up and the economy is weakening.”
“你知道，我不想在这里扎进一堆假设里，”鲍威尔说，“但我会说，你能想象得出，情况会十分具有挑战性，通货膨胀会不断上升，经济会疲软。”
The Trump administration has asked China to make a wide array of changes, including reducing its trade surplus with the United States, stopping what it described as theft of American intellectual property and opening Chinese markets to American business.
特朗普政府已经要求中国做出大量的改变，包括减少对美贸易顺差，停止它所说的偷窃美国知识产权的行为，以及对美国企业开放中国市场。
But by giving the Chinese a long list of demands, that has encouraged Beijing to focus on those that are easiest to fulfill, said Jeremie Waterman, president of the China Center at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
但向中国提出一长列的要求，导致北京将重心放在了那些最为容易实现的方面，美国商会大中华地区高级主任王杰(Jeremie Waterman)表示。
“The administration, to a degree, has given the Chinese an off ramp,” he said. “Giving the Chinese a choice is not an optimal negotiating approach.”
“在某种程度上，特朗普政府给了中国一个出口，”他说。“给中国选择可不是理想的谈判策略”。
China has also had difficulty figuring out whom to negotiate with, after tentative agreements reached with Mr. Mnuchin and Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary, fell through.
在与马努钦及商务部长威尔伯·罗斯(Wilbur Ross)的临时性协议落空后，在搞明白该与谁进行谈判的方面，中国也遭遇了困难。
“I think they’re coming to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter whether Mnuchin or Ross or anybody is in the front of the line, that it’s really going to be figuring out what Trump wants,” said Claire Reade, senior counsel at Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer.
“我认为他们得出的结论是无论是马努钦、罗斯还是任何人在前方都不重要，它真正应该弄清楚的是特朗普想要的是什么，”凯寿律师事务所(Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer)的高级律师克莱尔·里德(Claire Reade)说。
In a sign of the impasse that the dialogue between China and the United States has reached, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce issued a statement on Thursday arguing that it has been unfairly vilified with false claims about its trade practices.
中美对话已经陷入僵局，其中一个迹象是中国商务部周四发布了一项声明，提出该国遭到了关于其贸易行为不公正的污蔑。
“This is a distortion of facts, therefore groundless,” the ministry said. “For the purpose of meeting domestic political needs and suppressing China’s development, the U.S. has fabricated a set of policy arguments that distort the truth about Sino-U.S. economic and trade relations.”
这“是歪曲事实、站不住脚的”，中国商务部表示。“美方出于国内政治需要和打压中国发展的目的，编造了一整套歪曲中美经贸关系真相的政策逻辑。”
Mr. Mnuchin said on Thursday that Mr. Trump would not do anything to jeopardize economic growth. He insisted that he was going to help work with companies to get exemptions from tariffs and that he would try to persuade businesses such as Harley-Davidson, the motorcycle maker, not to move manufacturing abroad to mitigate the pain of retaliatory tariffs.
马努钦周四表示，特朗普将不会做出任何有损于经济增长的事情。他坚称，他将帮助企业努力获得关税豁免，并且表示他还会试图说服例如摩托车生产商哈雷-戴维森(Harley-Davidson)这样的企业不要将生产转移到国外，以缓和报复性关税带来的伤害。
While Mr. Mnuchin was successful in staving off draconian new Chinese investment restrictions, the tariffs have kept coming and it remains unclear how much influence he really has with Mr. Trump. Despite his private reservations, Mr. Mnuchin continues to defend the administration’s trade policies.
尽管马努钦成功地延缓了对中国新的严厉投资限制，但美国一直在加征更多关税，尚不清楚他在特朗普那里到底有多大的影响力。虽然他私下有所保留，但马努钦仍继续为特朗普政府的贸易政策辩护。
“I can assure you that the president listens to my advice,” Mr. Mnuchin said in response to a question from Representative Gregory W. Meeks, Democrat of New York. “He is the president. Sometimes he follows my advice, and sometimes he doesn’t, which I respect.”
“我能向你保证，总统会听我的建议，”马努钦回应纽约民主党众议员格雷戈里·W·米克斯(Gregory W. Meeks)的问题时说。“他是总统。有时候他会听从我的建议，有时候他不会，我尊重这一点。”
Unimpressed, Mr. Meeks mocked Mr. Trump for describing himself for the second time on Thursday as a “very stable genius” and asked the Treasury secretary if he saw himself the same way.
没有被打动的米克斯嘲笑了特朗普周四第二次将自己形容为“非常稳定的天才”，并且问财政部长是否也这么看待自己。
“I am stable,” Mr. Mnuchin said with a chuckle.
“我很稳定，”马努钦笑着说。
