特朗普当选与英国退欧不再是同类

The Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump will forever be linked in history. The two events took place within a few months of each other. Both were populist revolts that appealed to similar constituencies.

英国退欧公投与唐纳德?特朗普(Donald Trump)胜选将成为历史上永远被联系在一起的事件。两件事在几个月的时间内相继发生。两者都代表了对于相似选民群体有感召力的民粹主义造反。

After Mr Trump’s election, Theresa May, Britain’s prime minister, was the first foreign leader to visit the new US president. A photograph of the two leaders walking hand in hand quickly became a symbol of the closeness of Trump’s America and Brexit Britain. For mainstream politicians in Europe, “Trump and Brexit” became shorthand for the forces that they were trying to combat.

特朗普当选后，英国首相特里萨?梅(Theresa May)成为了首位拜访这位美国新总统的外国领导人。两位领导人牵手而行的照片，迅速成为特朗普治下的美国和退欧后的英国关系亲密的象征。在欧洲主流政治家看来，“特朗普和英国退欧”(Trump and Brexit)已经成为他们一直试图打击的势力的代名词。

But, as the months have passed, it has become clear that Trump and Brexit are not, in fact, identical twins. They are more like distant relations who are growing further apart with the passage of time.

但是，随着时间的推移，事实已经变得很清楚，特朗普当选和英国退欧实际上并非“同卵双胞胎”。两者更像是随着时间流逝关系越来越疏远的远房亲戚。

The differences between the Trump phenomenon and Brexit are a matter of both style and substance. Mr Trump violates the conventional expectations of how a US president should behave on a daily basis. Mrs May, by contrast, is scrupulously correct in her behaviour. She is about as likely to attend an EU summit in her pyjamas as to tweet that she is a “very stable genius”.

特朗普现象与英国退欧这两件事不仅看上去不同，实质上也不同。特朗普每日都在违背对一位美国总统应如何行事的传统预期。相比之下，梅的举止没有丝毫差错。她绝不可能在Twitter上称自己是一个“精神状态非常稳定的天才”，就像她绝不可能穿件睡衣去参加欧盟(EU)峰会一样。

Early in her period in office Mrs May suggested hopefully that she might get on with Mr Trump because “opposites attract”. But that pretence has now been dropped. When the president retweeted posts from a British far-right group, Mrs May was forced to condemn him. Predictably Mr Trump lashed back, although he initially directed his ire at the wrong Theresa May, lambasting a British housewife with just six Twitter followers.

在执政初期，梅乐观地提出，自己跟特朗普或许会合得来，因为“两极相吸”。但是现在她已经放弃了这种幻想。当特朗普转发英国一个极右组织的帖子时，梅不得不对他进行谴责。不出所料，特朗普回击了，尽管他最初将怒火指向了一个错误的特里萨?梅账户——痛斥了一名在Twitter上仅有6个粉丝的英国家庭主妇。

The slapstick comedy of this incident obscured a serious political difference. In office, Mr Trump has embraced anti-Muslim rhetoric that Mrs May has carefully avoided. That difference is part of a broader divide between the radical nationalism of Mr Trump and the cautious and conventional globalism of Mrs May.

这件事的滑稽性掩盖了一个严肃的政治差异。作为总统的特朗普一直对反穆斯林言论来者不拒，而梅一直对这种言论避之不及。这种差异是特朗普激进民族主义与梅谨慎传统的全球主义之间更广泛分歧的一部分。

For although many Europeans and Remainers are convinced that Brexit is a nationalist spasm, and little else, the May government is determined to present it in a different light. The prime minister’s argument is that leaving the EU is an opportunity to forge a new future as “Global Britain”. She has emphasised her support for the international, rules-based, liberal order. By contrast, Mr Trump remains a proud, “America First” nationalist who is deeply suspicious of all international institutions, from the UN to the World Trade Organization.

因为，尽管许多欧洲人和留欧派英国人相信英国退欧只是一次民族主义“抽风”，但梅政府决心赋予它一种不同的意义。梅认为，脱离欧盟是打造一个新未来——“全球化的英国”——的机遇。她强调了自己对国际化、基于规则的自由秩序的支持。相比之下，特朗普仍是一个自以为是、信奉“美国优先”的民族主义者，对所有国际机构——从联合国(UN)到世界贸易组织(WTO)——都存在深深的质疑。

These very different international visions have led to policy disputes between Brexit Britain and Trump’s America. Neither side has much interest in playing up these differences. But on a succession of issues, Britain has sided with the EU rather than the US. When the Trump administration repudiated the Paris climate accord, the UK stuck with the agreement and the European consensus. The same pattern repeated itself when the White House announced its intention to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. And while Mr Trump is itching to rip up the Iran nuclear deal, Britain has joined the rest of the EU in supporting it.

这些截然不同的世界观，导致了决定退欧后的英国和特朗普治下美国之间的政策分歧。双方都不愿强调这些分歧。但英国在一系列问题上都支持欧盟，而非美国。特朗普政府退出《巴黎气候协定》时，英国坚持遵守该协定和欧洲共识。当白宫宣布计划将美国驻以色列大使馆迁至耶路撒冷时，同样的一幕再次上演。此外，特朗普很想撕毁伊朗核协议，而英国则站在欧盟其他国家那边支持该协议。

Perhaps the most consequential policy division is over the WTO. The Trump administration is quietly hobbling the world trade body by blocking appointments to its court. But a functioning WTO is critical to Mrs May’s plans to make Brexit work. The UK has stressed that, if it cannot strike a new trade deal with the EU, it will fall back on WTO rules. Mr Trump’s agenda could wreck the body that Britain is relying upon as its insurance policy.

或许影响最重大的政策分歧在于如何对待WTO。特朗普政府通过阻止WTO上诉机构法官的任命，悄悄地给这一世界贸易机构使绊子。但一个正常运转的WTO对梅的英国退欧计划至关重要。英国强调，如果无法与欧盟达成新的贸易协议，它将转而退守WTO规则。特朗普的议程可能会破坏这个英国赖以保底的机构。

Some of the ideologues behind Brexit remain wedded to the idea that Britain is part of an “Anglosphere” of English-speaking nations, with the US and the UK at its heart. But Britain’s foreign policy choices since the Brexit vote suggest that the UK is actually more comfortable with the Franco-German worldview than the American one. The repeated low-key clashes between the May government and the Trump administration emphasise the extent to which Britain is now “in play” as a foreign policy actor. If the Brexit negotiations come to a reasonably amicable conclusion and Mr Trump remains in the White House, post-Brexit Britain could easily end up closer to the EU than the US.

支持英国退欧的一些理论家仍坚持认为，英国是以美英两国为核心的英语国家“盎格鲁文化圈”的一部分。但退欧公投以来的英国外交政策选择表明，英国实际上更愿意接受法德的世界观，而非美国的世界观。梅政府与特朗普政府之间的多次有节制的冲突，突显出英国如今已在多大程度上推行独立的外交政策。如果英国退欧谈判达成一个算得上友好的结果而特朗普仍坐镇白宫，退欧后的英国可能更容易向欧盟、而非美国靠拢。

The more ardent Brexiters would argue that this is simply because the British establishment has failed to understand the populist moment. But opinion polls suggest that Mrs May’s policy decisions reflect wider sentiment in Britain. A Globescan survey last year showed that only 33 per cent of Britons believe that the US has a “mainly positive” impact on world affairs; compared with 84 per cent positive ratings for Germany and 66 per cent for France. Some 79 per cent of Brits trusted President Barack Obama’s judgment, compared with 22 per cent who trust President Trump.

更坚决的退欧派人士会辩称，这只是因为英国建制派未能理解这股民粹主义势头。但民调显示，梅的政策决定反映了英国民众更普遍的情绪。去年GlobeScan所做的一项调查显示，仅33%的英国人认为美国对世界事务的影响“主要是积极的”；相比之下，德国在这方面获得的认可率为84%，法国为66%。约79%的英国人信任巴拉克?奥巴马(Barack Obama)总统的判断，而信任特朗普总统的只有22%。

These numbers underline the differences between Brexit Britain and Trump’s America. British political debate since the Brexit vote has been bitter, but it has been conducted in largely conventional terms. By contrast, Mr Trump’s White House increasingly feels like a deranged episode from a reality TV show. The vote for Brexit and the election of Mr Trump may have sprung from similar instincts. But they have ended up in very different places.

这些数字突显了退欧后的英国和特朗普治下美国之间的种种不同。自退欧公投以来，英国的政治辩论一直很激烈，但在很大程度上是按照传统方式进行的。相比之下，特朗普的白宫越来越像是一集疯狂的真人秀节目。英国公投退欧和特朗普当选可能源自相似的本能。但它们的后续发展截然不同。