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The white house
The Trump presidency is in a hole. That is bad for America—and the world
特朗普总统身陷坑中。 这对美国乃至全世界都不是好事！
DONALD TRUMP won the White House on the promise that government is easy. Unlike his Democratic opponent, whose career had been devoted to politics, Mr Trump stood as a businessman who could Get Things Done. Enough voters decided that boasting, mocking, lying and grabbing women were secondary. Some Trump fans even saw them as the credentials of an authentic, swamp-draining saviour.
特朗普许诺治理政府是件轻松惬意之事，这助力他入主了白宫。他的民主党对手在职业生涯里一直献身政治，而特朗普则不同。他是一位能成事的商人。相当多选民认定自吹自擂，冷嘲热讽，谎话连篇和冒犯妇女这些缺点并非那么重要。一些特朗普的粉丝甚至把这些当成是真实可信，能救华盛顿出沼泽的救世主之明证。
Drain the swamp原本不是一个常用短语，但在跟特朗普联系上以后，这个词开始屡见报端，并且和“Lock her up”(把她关起来)，“Rigged ”（被操控）以及“Build the wall”(筑起高墙)三个流行语一起，成为了特朗普及其支持者的四大口号之一。Drain the swamp可以简单解释为特朗普在竞选期间对其支持者的一个承诺：从根本上彻底地改变华盛顿的政治生态。
After 70 days in office, however, Mr Trump is stuck in the sand. A health-care bill promised as one of his “first acts” suffered a humiliating collapse in the—republican-controlled—Congress. His repeated attempts to draft curbs on travel to America from some Muslim countries are being blocked by the courts. And suspicions that his campaign collaborated with Russia have cost him his national security adviser and look likely to dog his administration. Voters are not impressed. No other president so early in his first term has suffered such low approval ratings.
然而，上任70天后，特朗普已受困于浅滩。医改方案作为他承诺的“首批法案”之一，在共和党控制的国会中遭遇到耻辱性的溃败。他试图控制特定穆斯林国家前来美国的多次尝试也被法庭所阻止。竞选过程中他与俄罗斯合作的质疑以他的国家安全顾问下台为代价，并且看起来很可能会伤害他的行政管理。还没有哪位总统在其第一届任期这么早的阶段就经历这么差的提案通过率。
It is tempting to feel relief that the Trump presidency is a mess. For those who doubt much of his agenda and worry about his lack of respect for institutions, perhaps the best hope is that he accomplishes little. That logic is beguiling, but wrong. After years of gridlock, Washington has work to do. The forthcoming summit with Xi Jinping, China’s president, shows how America is still the indispensable nation. A weak president can be dangerous—picture a trade war, a crisis in the Baltics or conflict on the Korean peninsula.
特朗普总统任上一团糟似乎让人如释重负。对于那些怀疑他的大部分计划，担心他不尊重专业机构的人来说，也许最大的希望就是他少做点事。这个逻辑是令人着迷，但错得离谱。经过多年的僵持，华盛顿有很多工作要推进。即将到来的与中国领导人的首脑峰会表明，美国仍然是举足轻重的国家。弱势总统可能带来危险 - 想象一下贸易战争，波罗的海危机或朝鲜半岛的冲突。
The business of government
政府的业务
Mr Trump is hardly the first tycoon to discover that business and politics work by different rules. If you fall out over a property deal, you can always find another sucker. In politics you cannot walk away so easily. Even if Mr Trump now despises the Republican factions that dared defy him over health care,Congress is the only place he can go to pass legislation.
特朗普总统可不是首个发现商业和政治按照不同规则运作的大亨。如果你在一次房地产交易中出局，你总是可以找到另一次机会。在政治上你不能一走了之。即使特朗普先生鄙视那些胆敢反对医改方案的共和党派系，国会仍是唯一可以通过立法的地方。
The nature of political power is different, too. As owner and CEO of his business, Mr Trump had absolute control. The constitution sets out to block would-be autocrats. Where Mr Trump has acted appropriately—as with his nomination of a principled, conservative jurist to fill a Supreme Court vacancy—he deserves to prevail. But when the courts question the legality of his travel order they are only doing their job. Likewise, the Republican failure to muster a majority over health-care reflects not just divisions between the party’s moderates and hardliners, but also the defects of a bill that, by the end, would have led to worse protection, or none, for tens of millions of Americans without saving taxpayers much money.
政治权力的性质也迥然不同。作为公司的所有者和首席执行官，特朗普先生拥有绝对的控制权。宪法的出发点是要防止可能的独裁者。如果特朗普总统采取合适的行动他理应获胜，例如提名一位原则性强，稳健保守的法学家填补最高法院的空缺 。但是当法庭质疑他旅行规定的合法性时，他们只是在做分内的工作。同样，共和党在医改方案未获多数支持，这不仅仅反映出党内温和派和强硬派之间的分歧，也体现了这个方案自身的缺陷。它最终会导致数以千万计的美国人医疗保障水平下降甚至彻底失去保障，而且与此同时未能为纳税人省钱。
Far from taking Washington by storm, America’s CEO is out of his depth. The art of political compromise is new to him. He blurs his own interests and the interests of the nation. The scrutiny of office grates. He chafes under the limitations of being the most powerful man in the world. You have only to follow his incontinent stream of tweets to grasp Mr Trump’s paranoia and vanity: the press lies about him; the election result fraudulently omitted millions of votes for him; the intelligence services are disloyal; his predecessor tapped his phones. It’s neither pretty nor presidential.
这位美国首席执行官不但没有在华盛顿一鸣惊人，反而应付局面都相当吃力。政治上妥协的艺术对他来说是全新的。他模糊了自身利益和国家利益。仔细检查办公室格栅。作为世界上最有权力的人，他对受到的限制有些恼火。你只有追逐他无节制的推特更新，来掌握特朗普总统的偏执和虚荣：例如新闻界在编制他的谎言; 选举结果欺骗性地遗漏了数百万张投给他的选票;情报机关的不忠; 他的前任窃听了他的手机等等。这既不优雅也不是总统应有的风格。
That the main victim of these slurs has so far been the tweeter-in-chief himself is testament to the strength of American democracy. But institutions can erode, and the country is wretchedly divided. Unless Mr Trump changes course, the harm risks spreading. The next test will be the budget. If the Republican Party cannot pass a stop-gap measure,the government will start to shut down on April 29th. Recent jitters in the markets are a sign that investors are counting on Mr Trump and his party to pass legislation.
迄今为止，这些诽谤的主要受害者是推特狂人自己。这也是美国民主力量切实的证明。但专业机构也可能受到损害，而且国家内部产生这样的分歧是蛮差劲的。除非特朗普先生改变行事方法，否则危害有蔓延的风险。下一个考验是预算。如果共和党不能通过一个权宜之计，政府将于4月29日开始停摆。近期市场情绪的紧张不安表明，投资者们在盘算着特朗普及其党派能否通过此项法案。
More than anything, they are looking for tax reform and an infrastructure plan. There is vast scope to make fiscal policy more efficient and fairer. American firms face high tax rates and have a disincentive to repatriate profits. Personal taxes are a labyrinth of privileges and loopholes, most of which benefit the well-off. Likewise, the country’s cramped airports and potholed highways are a drain on productivity. Sure enough, Mr Trump has let it be known that he now wants to tackle tax. And, in a bid to win support from Democrats, he may deal with infrastructure at the same time.
更重要的是，他们正在寻求税收改革和基础设施计划。让财政政策更高效，更公平的工作范围巨大无比。美国公司面临着高税率，所以没有诱因将其海外利润转回国内。个人税收则是特权和漏洞的迷宫，大部分只利于有钱人。类似的，国内拥挤的机场和坑坑洼洼的高速公路正在影响着生产力。毫无疑问，特朗普先生已经广而告之，他现在要解决税收问题。而为了赢得民主党的支持，他要同时处理基础设施问题。
Yet the politics of tax reform are as treacherous as the politics of health care, and not only because they will generate ferocious lobbying. Most Republican plans are shockingly regressive,despite Mr Trump’s blue-collar base. To win even a modest reform, Mr Trump and his team will have to show a mastery of detail and coalition-building that has so far eluded them. If Mr Trump’s popularity falls further, the job of winning over fractious Republicans will only become harder.
然而，税收改革的政治与医改政治一样诡异莫测，原因不仅仅是会产生惊人的游说工作。大多数共和党的计划非常激进，对于特朗普总统代表的蓝领阶层不管不顾。即便要赢得一个温和的改革方案，特朗普和他的团队必须表现出对细节和联盟构建的掌控，迄今为止这些都是他们逃避之事。如果特朗普总统的人气进一步下降，赢得不易对付的共和党人的工作会变得更加困难。
Were he frustrated in Congress, the president would surely fall back on areas where he has a free hand. He has already made full-throated use of executive orders and promises to harness the bureaucracy to force through his agenda. In theory he could deregulate parts of the economy, such as finance,where the hand of government is sometimes too heavy. Yet his executive orders so far have been crudely theatrical—as with this week’s repeal of Barack Obama’s environmental rules,which will not lead to the renaissance of mining jobs that he has disingenuously promised coal country. It is the same with trade. Mr Trump could work through the World Trade Organisation to open markets. More probably, the economic nationalists on his team will have the upper hand. If so,America will take a bilateral approach, trade protection will grow and foreign policy will become more confrontational.
假如总统失意于国会，他肯定会退回到自己可以控制的领域。他已经在高调使用行政命令的方法，并承诺利用官僚机构来强制执行其计划。理论上，他可以放松对经济的管制，如金融，这些方面政府的手伸得太长了。然而他的行政命令到目前为止一直即夸张又粗糙，就像本周废除奥巴马的环境法规一样，这不会导致采矿工作的复兴。复兴只是他对煤炭行业有口无心的承诺。贸易问题同样如此。特朗普先生可以通过世贸组织打开市场。更大的可能是，他的团队中的经济民族主义者将占据上风。如果是这样，美国将采取双边方针，贸易保护将会增长，外交政策则更加对抗。
The character question
性格问题
The Americans who voted for Mr Trump either overlooked his bombast, or they saw in him a tycoon with the self-belief to transform Washington. Although this presidency is still young, that already seems an error of judgment. His policies,from health-care reform to immigration, have been poor—they do not even pass the narrow test that they benefit Trump voters.Most worrying for America and the world is how fast the businessman in the Oval Office is proving unfit for the job.
投票给特朗普的美国人要么忽视了他的夸夸其谈，要么就是视其为拥有改造华盛顿雄心的大亨。虽然总统任期才刚刚开始，但似乎已经证明这是一个错误的判断。从医疗改革到移民政策，他表现得一直很差劲。这些方案甚至没有通过小范围的测试，这些测试本来是有利于特朗普的选民的。对于美国和全世界来说，最令人担忧的是，需要多长时间证明坐在椭圆形办公室里的那位商人不胜任此项工作？
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