特朗普的學習曲線

One of the joys of parenthood is that you see the world again through fresh eyes. Almost the same could be said of observing Donald Trump’s learning curve. Did anyone know how complicated US healthcare could be? Were people aware that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican? Who knew that North Korea was not at China’s beck and call?

爲人父母的樂趣之一，是你又能用新眼光看世界了。觀察唐納德?特朗普(Donald Trump)的學習曲線，可以說差不多有類似的效果。過去有誰知道美國醫療體系可能多麼複雜嗎？有誰意識到亞伯拉罕?林肯(Abraham Lincoln)是一名共和黨人嗎？有誰知道朝鮮不受中國的擺佈嗎？

The good news is Mr Trump’s curve is often vertical. Some of his crazier positions have been discarded. The bad news is that Mr Trump’s shifts require constant vigilance. For the next four or eight years, global peace of mind will depend on Mr Trump having the right advisers at hand when it matters.

好消息是特朗普的學習曲線常常是垂直的。他的一些更爲瘋狂的主張已被拋棄了。壞消息是需要時刻對特朗普的變化保持警惕。在未來4年或8年裏，全球的心境安寧將依賴於，在緊要關頭時特朗普有正確的顧問在身邊。

Things go wrong when moderating influences are absent. On Monday, Mr Trump called Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s autocratic president, to congratulate him on a narrow referendum victory that is in dispute. It is no coincidence this ill-advised call took place while HR McMaster, Mr Trump’s national security adviser, was out of the country. The president’s most incendiary daytime tweets often come out on a Saturday, when his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is observing the Sabbath. The others are issued at night when Mr Trump is alone. He is the first president since Franklin Roosevelt in the 1940s to go to bed and wake up alone. Until now, his wife Melania has shown no sign of wanting to join him in Washington. Beware Mr Trump when he is alone with the world.

當令特朗普節制的影響力消失時，情況就變得糟糕。上週一，特朗普致電土耳其獨裁總統雷傑普?塔伊普?埃爾多安(Recep Tayyip Erdogan)，祝賀他引發爭議的公投險勝。這通考慮不周的電話發生在特朗普的國家安全顧問赫伯特?雷蒙德?麥克馬斯特(HR McMaster)不在國內時，這絕非巧合。這位總統白天在Twitter發出的最煽動性的帖子經常發生在週六，那時他的女婿賈裏德?庫什納(Jared Kushner)在守安息日。其他煽動性的帖子是他在夜晚一人獨處時發出的。特朗普是自1940年代的富蘭克林?羅斯福(Franklin Roosevelt)以來第一位獨自就寢和起牀的總統。直到現在，他妻子梅拉尼亞(Melania)都並未流露出要到華盛頓跟他團聚的意思。要當心獨自面對世界的特朗普。

But his daytime company is greatly improved from when he started.

但跟他起步時相比，他在白天裏的夥伴的水平有了很大提高。

Rex Tillerson, his secretary of state, has been criticised for failing to fill up the administration’s key diplomatic roles. His hesitation stems from an excess of caution. Until he knows what Mr Trump’s foreign policy will be, it is tough to know which people would be best to execute it. The same applies to Mr Tillerson’s shyness with the media. Why talk to journalists when Mr Trump may contradict you within minutes of stating a policy? Whatever Mr Tillerson’s shortcomings, impulsiveness is not one of them. The world should be reassured by that.

特朗普的國務卿雷克斯?蒂勒森(Rex Tillerson)遭到批評，原因是對關鍵的外交職位未作任命。他的猶豫不決源於過度謹慎。在他了解特朗普將採取何種外交政策之前，他很難知道誰最適合執行政策。蒂勒森不願跟媒體打交道，也是類似情況。聲明一項政策還不到幾分鐘，就可能遭到特朗普的否認，那爲何還要對記者們講呢？儘管蒂勒森有種種缺點，他的缺點絕不包括衝動。世界應當對這一點感到安慰。

The same goes for Gary Cohn, director of the National Economic Council, who is becoming Mr Trump’s key domestic policy figure. Like Mr Tillerson, he is a wealthy man who can quit at any time. Both have sharply contradicted Mr Trump in front of others and lived to tell the tale. Both are also helping to dilute Mr Trump’s mercantilist instincts. If the president’s education continued along the same lines, the world would feel less scary than it did three months ago.

國家經濟委員會(National Economic Council)主席加里?科恩(Gary Cohn)面臨着相同的情況。他開始成爲特朗普的關鍵國內政策人物。跟蒂勒森一樣，科恩也是富人，隨時都可以離開。此二人都曾在他人面前表現出與特朗普極度相左的意見，但仍得以逃生。他們也都在幫助稀釋特朗普的重商主義本能。如果這位總統的教育繼續沿此線路發展，那麼世界將不像3個月之前那樣感到害怕。

But there is little basis for assuming Mr Trump’s evolution will persist in the right direction. First, he has no personal loyalties. When his greatest friend and mentor, Roy Cohn (no relation to Gary), was dying of HIV-Aids in the late 1980s, Mr Trump refused to visit him. The notorious New York lawyer had ceased to be useful. “Donald pisses ice water,” Cohn said.

但是，想當然地假定特朗普將始終朝着正確的方向變化，基本沒有依據。第一，他不講個人忠誠。當他最偉大的朋友、導師羅伊?科恩（Roy Cohn，跟加里?科恩沒有關係）在1980年代末即將死於艾滋病時，特朗普拒絕去看望他。這位聲名狼藉的紐約律師對他不再有用了。“他冷若冰霜，”科恩說。

Most presidents suffer from an excess of loyalty. Mr Trump is the opposite. The world’s diplomats are investing much time in cultivating Mr Kushner on the assumption he cannot be fired. That is almost certainly wrong. He can be marginalised, which is the same thing. Mr Kushner has been so overloaded with responsibilities he is almost destined to fail. Mr Trump never blames himself.

多數總統受到太忠誠的困擾。特朗普恰恰相反。全世界的外交官都在花大量時間結交庫什納，因爲他們假設庫什納不會被解僱。這種想法幾乎肯定是錯誤的。庫什納可能會被邊緣化，這跟遭解僱是一回事。庫什納被賦予了太多的責任，他幾乎註定要失敗。特朗普從不自責。

Second, the president has set up a pipeline of foreseeable defeats. His team is no closer than it was six weeks ago to finding a replacement to Obamacare. A second failure on healthcare reform is almost certain. That, in turn, will endanger his centrepiece tax reform, which is no nearer a drawing board than when he took office. In some respects it is even further away. Many Republicans assumed that Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, would push through his own tax plan once Mr Trump had given up. They overestimated Mr Ryan’s competence.

第二，這位總統已醞釀了大量可預見的失敗。目前，他的團隊距離拿出“奧巴馬醫改”(Obamacare)的替代方案不比6周前更近。在醫改上遭遇第二次失敗幾乎是必然的。這將進而危及特朗普的核心稅改。眼下，稅改跟他上任時相比也並未距離進入設計階段更近一步。在某些方面看，反而距離更遠了。許多共和黨人想當然地認爲，一旦特朗普放棄了，衆議院議長保羅?瑞安(Paul Ryan)將通過他本人的稅改方案。他們高估了瑞安的能力。

There is even less likelihood Mr Trump will get his own way on North Korea. At some point his failure to disarm Kim Jong Un will become dangerously obvious. Ditto for reducing the US-China trade deficit and opening the spigots on infrastructure spending.

特朗普在朝鮮問題上爲所欲爲的可能性甚至更小。到某一時刻，他無法解除金正恩(Kim Jong Un)的武裝這一點將明顯到危險。同樣，他將無法降低美國與中國的貿易逆差，也無法打開基建支出水龍頭。

Mr Trump will find it hard to stand the reality of one defeat after another. Heads will roll. Some will be moderates. Stephen Bannon, the champion of Mr Trump’s “America First” instincts, may have been sidelined. But he is still there. That, ultimately, is the weakness of Mr Trump’s Oval Office tutorials. They depend on who is doing the educating. For the time being, Mr Trump is surrounded by cooler heads. When things go wrong, their loyalty will count for nothing.

特朗普將發現，他很難忍受接二連三失敗的現實。一些人將受到懲罰。一些人將變成溫和派。擁護特朗普的“美國優先”本能的斯蒂芬?班農(Stephen Bannon)也許已被擠到一旁。但他仍未離去。最終，這就是特朗普在橢圓形辦公室(Oval Office)中所受教育的弱點。他受到的教育取決於是誰在進行教育工作。目前，特朗普周圍是一些頭腦冷靜的人物。當出事時，他們的忠誠將變得毫無價值。