On Tuesday, US President Joe Biden announced a series of enormous tariffs worth 18 billion dollars on Chinese products, including electric vehicles, solar equipment, and batteries. In justifying these measures that he'd previously opposed,

本週二，美國總統喬-拜登宣佈對包括電動汽車、太陽能設備和電池在內的中國產品徵收一系列價值 180 億美元的鉅額關稅。在為這些他之前反對的措施辯解時，他說：

Biden argued that the Chinese government had cheated by pouring money into Chinese companies, which then dump cheap products onto the market, hurting competitors who play by the rules.

拜登認為，中國政府通過向中國公司注資進行欺騙，然後向市場傾銷廉價產品，損害了遵守規則的競爭對手。

A day later, the CCP vowed to take resolute measures in retaliation, and while we don't yet know what the CCP have in mind, it's clear that the US-China trade war is heating up.

一天後，中共發誓要採取堅決的報復措施，雖然我們還不知道中共有什麼打算，但中美貿易戰顯然正在升溫。

So in this video, we thought we'd take a look at the driving forces behind the trade war, why Biden has changed his mind, and how this could all end.

是以，在這段視頻中，我們想看看貿易戰背後的驅動力、拜登為何改變主意以及這一切可能的結局。

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在我們開始之前，如果您還沒有訂閱，請考慮訂閱並按鈴，以便在我們發佈新視頻時及時收到通知。

So let's start by taking a look at the tariffs themselves.

讓我們先來看看關稅本身。

Aside from the 50% tariff on semiconductors, which comes into effect next year, the tariffs basically come in two phases. There are some that come into effect immediately, and others that are now due to come into effect in 2026, presumably because Biden is trying to minimise market disruption by giving supply chains a bit of time to adjust.

除了明年生效的對半導體徵收 50%的關稅外，關稅基本上分兩個階段。其中一些關稅立即生效，另一些關稅將於 2026 年生效，這可能是因為拜登試圖通過給供應鏈一些調整時間來儘量減少對市場的干擾。

It's not just that divide though. The tariffs can also be split into two sets.

但不僅僅是這樣劃分。關稅也可分為兩套。

The first set applies to so-called strategically sensitive imports, stuff like critical minerals, semiconductors, or syringes, which are important for stuff like high-tech manufacturing or medical practice.

第一套適用於所謂的戰略敏感進口產品，如關鍵礦物、半導體或注射器，這些產品對高科技製造或醫療實踐非常重要。

The second set applies to imports related to the green transition, i.e. things like batteries, solar panels, and electric vehicles, which have just been hit with an enormous 100% tariff, meaning that anyone importing a Chinese EV will also have to pay the full price of that EV in customs duties.

第二套關稅適用於與綠色轉型相關的進口產品，即電池、太陽能電池板和電動汽車等，這些產品剛剛被徵收了 100%的鉅額關稅，這意味著進口中國電動汽車的任何人都必須支付該電動汽車的全額關稅。

So why is Biden doing this? Well, as we see it, Biden's policies have political, economic, and security rationale. Or at least Biden thinks they do.

那麼，拜登為什麼要這麼做呢？在我們看來，拜登的政策具有政治、經濟和安全方面的合理性。至少拜登認為是這樣。

Politically, tariffs are a good way of signalling to the American electorate that he's tough on

在政治上，關稅是向美國選民表明他在以下問題上態度強硬的好方法

China, and it makes it more difficult for Trump to present himself as the anti-China candidate in the upcoming election, as he did so successfully against Hillary Clinton in 2016.

中國，這也讓特朗普在即將到來的大選中更難將自己塑造成反華候選人，就像他在 2016 年成功擊敗希拉里-克林頓那樣。

It also puts pressure on the EU, which is currently deciding whether or not to impose its own tariffs on Chinese EVs, and who generally import more of this stuff than the US does anyway.

這也給歐盟施加了壓力，歐盟目前正在決定是否對中國電動汽車徵收關稅，而且歐盟進口的電動汽車數量通常比美國要多。

Economically, Biden is hoping that by protecting American manufacturing from Chinese competition, it will bring well-paid manufacturing jobs back to the US.

在經濟上，拜登希望通過保護美國製造業免受中國競爭的影響，將高薪的製造業工作崗位帶回美國。

And he's also probably hoping that the tariffs on green transition imports will help America capture market share in various green industries, which are due to grow as the energy transition accelerates in the coming years.

他可能還希望，對綠色轉型進口產品徵收關稅將有助於美國在各種綠色產業中搶佔市場份額。

Finally, Biden also hopes that these tariffs will better guarantee America's security, which is the main motivation behind the tariffs on strategically sensitive imports.

最後，拜登還希望這些關稅能更好地保障美國的安全，這也是對具有戰略敏感性的進口商品徵收關稅的主要動機。

These are generally items that the US imports from China, but American politicians don't like the idea of being even partly dependent on China for anything important. Both because it gives the CCP some sort of implicit leverage, and because it would make things more difficult for the US if the CCP cut off imports in the event of a full-blown conflict.

這些物品一般都是美國從中國進口的，但美國政客不喜歡在任何重要的事情上依賴中國，哪怕是部分依賴。這既是因為它給了中國共產黨某種隱性的影響力，也是因為如果中國共產黨在衝突全面爆發時切斷進口，美國的處境就會更加艱難。

So, will these tariffs actually work and achieve these goals?

那麼，這些關稅能否真正發揮作用，實現這些目標呢？

Well, politically, it's probably a savvy move, given that most Americans don't like China and love the idea of reshoring American industry. Although we should say that Trump has since tried to one-up Biden by promising a 200% tariff on Chinese EVs.

在政治上，這可能是一個明智之舉，因為大多數美國人都不喜歡中國，而喜歡美國工業重新定位的想法。雖然我們應該說，特朗普後來又試圖超越拜登，承諾對中國電動汽車徵收 200% 的關稅。

But when it comes to the actual economic impact, it's harder to say.

但說到對經濟的實際影響，就很難說了。

It seems plausible that these measures will help reshore American manufacturing, but whether they'll actually have a positive impact on the American economy overall is a more difficult question to answer. As Biden himself noted a few years ago, tariffs will mean higher prices for American consumers, at least in the short term, and China's retaliatory action could also hurt the American economy in places.

這些措施將有助於美國製造業的重新定位，這似乎說得過去，但它們是否真的會對美國整體經濟產生積極影響，則是一個更難回答的問題。正如拜登自己幾年前指出的那樣，關稅對美國消費者來說意味著更高的價格，至少在短期內是這樣，而中國的報復行動也可能在某些地方損害美國經濟。

So, there's sort of a prisoner's dilemma at play here. While it would probably be optimal in the aggregate for both China and America to pursue more liberal trade policies, i.e. reduce trade barriers and tone down their industrial policies, the worst outcome from America's perspective is one where it pursues a liberal trade policy and China pursues a protectionist one, which allows China to undercut American industry and exacerbate America's strategic dependencies, and vice versa. This means that both countries defensively end up pursuing protectionist policies, even though it's probably worse than if they both pursued more liberal ones.

是以，這裡存在一種囚徒困境。雖然從總體上看，中美兩國都奉行更自由的貿易政策（即減少貿易壁壘和淡化產業政策）可能是最佳選擇，但從美國的角度來看，最糟糕的結果是美國奉行自由貿易政策，而中國奉行保護主義政策，這使得中國能夠削弱美國的產業，加劇美國的戰略依賴，反之亦然。這意味著兩國最終都會防禦性地奉行保護主義政策，儘管這可能比兩國都奉行更自由的政策更糟。

Finally, when it comes to security, it seems plausible that these measures will reduce

最後，在安全方面，這些措施似乎可以減少

America's dependence on China, but there are at least two caveats worth mentioning here.

美國對中國的依賴，但至少有兩點值得注意。

Firstly, there's some evidence that Chinese companies are finding ways around these sanctions by diverting their exports through third countries, including, most notably, Mexico.

首先，有證據表明，中國公司正在想方設法繞過這些制裁，通過第三國轉道出口，其中最明顯的就是墨西哥。

This is one of the reasons that for all of the talk of de-globalisation, the conventional measure of globalisation, namely the ratio between the total value of all international trade and global GDP, hasn't really declined at all over the past few years, suggesting that not much is really changing. The second, and perhaps more important caveat worth mentioning, is that while tariffs might improve American security by reducing its trade dependencies, they also simultaneously impair American security by making a US-China conflict more likely, because trade dependencies are a great safeguard against war. This is because when two countries' economies are greatly interlinked, war becomes economically disastrous, which disincentivises further escalation. When two economies are totally decoupled, however, they feel more confident about a full-on conflict, which then becomes more likely.

這也是為什麼儘管人們都在談論去全球化，但全球化的傳統衡量標準，即所有國際貿易總值與全球國內生產總值之間的比率，在過去幾年中並沒有真正下降，這表明並沒有發生什麼真正的變化。值得一提的第二點，也許是更重要的注意事項是，雖然關稅可能會通過減少貿易依賴來改善美國的安全，但同時也會損害美國的安全，使中美衝突更有可能發生，因為貿易依賴是防止戰爭的重要保障。這是因為當兩個國家的經濟緊密聯繫在一起時，戰爭就會在經濟上造成災難性後果，從而抑制戰爭的進一步升級。然而，當兩國經濟完全脫鉤時，他們會對全面衝突更有信心，從而更有可

And this isn't a new idea, either. In a book titled The Fallacies of Protection, for instance, French political economist Frédéric Bastiat wrote that a nation isolates itself looking forward to the possibility of war, but it's not this very act of isolating itself the beginning of war. What makes Bastiat's words so worrying is the fact that they were published in 1909, only a few years before the outbreak of WWI. At the time, Bastiat was writing about the rising tide of protectionism among great European powers, especially Germany and Britain, at the end of a period known as the First Era of Globalisation, or the Long Peace, which runs from the final defeat of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to WWI. During this time, the global trade to GDP ratio went from essentially zero to a high of 35% in 1913, a level that wouldn't return to again until the 1970s. Much like today, globalisation brought enormous prosperity, but it also engendered a certain anxiety in certain European countries about their newfound economic dependence on their neighbours. Britain was worried about its dependence on the European mainland for food, France was worried about its dependency on

這也不是什麼新觀點。例如，法國政治經濟學家弗雷德裡克-巴斯蒂亞（Frédéric Bastiat）在《保護的謬誤》（The Fallacies of Protection）一書中寫道，一個國家孤立自己，期待著戰爭的可能性，但孤立自己的行為並不是戰爭的開始。巴斯蒂亞的話之所以令人擔憂，是因為它發表於 1909 年，距離第一次世界大戰爆發只有幾年時間。當時，巴斯蒂亞所寫的是歐洲大國，特別是德國和英國之間保護主義浪潮的興起，而這一時期正處於被稱為 "全球化的第一個時代 "或 "長期和平 "的末期。在此期間，全球

Germany for coal and iron ore, and Germany was worried about its dependence on British-controlled maritime routes for imports of stuff like fertilisers. These anxieties inspired a rise in protectionism, which only stoked further distrust, and ultimately ended in war.

德國在煤炭和鐵礦石方面依賴英國，而德國則擔心自己依賴英國控制的海上航線進口化肥等物資。這些憂慮激發了保護主義的抬頭，而保護主義只會加劇不信任，最終導致戰爭。

Now, we're obviously still, hopefully, a long way away from a US-China war, and we should be wary of drawing too many parallels from the 1800s, but global geopolitics does look worryingly similar to where it was in the early 1900s.

現在，我們離中美戰爭顯然還有很長的路要走，希望如此，我們也應該警惕過多地將 19 世紀與現在相提並論，但全球地緣政治看起來確實與 20 世紀初的情況相似，令人擔憂。

It even uses real datasets from the likes of Starbucks, X, and Spotify in order to bring things to life. I'm not even a super mathematical person, and I still found it easy and enjoyable to work through, and that's because of how Brilliant is designed, built around learning by doing, with thousands of interactive lessons in maths, data analysis, programming, and AI.

它甚至使用了來自星巴克、X 和 Spotify 等公司的真實數據集，以便將事物帶入生活。我甚至不是一個超級數學愛好者，但我仍然覺得這本書既簡單又有趣，這是因為 Brilliant 的設計理念是邊做邊學，它提供了數以千計的數學、數據分析、編程和人工智能互動課程。

The good thing is that, like I mentioned earlier, you can learn all of these things quickly and easily because Brilliant's courses are split into easy-to-digest chunks. Brilliant helps you build real knowledge in just minutes a day, with fun lessons that you can do whenever you have time, replacing mindless scrolling on the train or while waiting for coffee with something actually stimulating and rewarding. So get learning across all kinds of STEM subjects for free for a full 30 days by clicking the link in the description. That way, you'll also get 20% off an annual premium subscription, and they'll know that you came from us, which really helps us out.

好在，就像我前面提到的，你可以快速、輕鬆地學習所有這些知識，因為 Brilliant 的課程抽成了易於消化的小塊。Brilliant 每天只需幾分鐘就能幫助你掌握真正的知識，你隨時都可以通過有趣的課程，在火車上或等咖啡的時候，用真正有刺激性和有收穫的東西來取代無意識的滾動。是以，點擊描述中的鏈接，即可在整整 30 天內免費學習各種 STEM 學科知識。這樣，您還可以享受年度高級訂閱 8 折的優惠，而且他們會知道您是從我們這裡購買的，這對我們大有幫助。