President Trump pounces on weakness, but retreats from strength. That’s one reason for Europe’s present troubles: For too long it was weak both toward President Vladimir Putin of Russia in the East and toward the new menace arising in the West.

特朗普总统见到弱者会痛打，面对强者则退缩。这正是欧洲当前困境的一个原因：长期以来，它在东方对俄罗斯总统普京表现出软弱，在西方对新生的威胁也同样软弱。

That’s certainly Trump’s perception. “I think they’re weak,” Trump said last month of European leaders, and he had a point. They fawned over him and meekly surrendered as he steamrolled them with tariffs.

这当然是特朗普的认知。上个月他在谈到欧洲领导人时说：“我觉得他们很弱。”他说的有道理。他们对他阿谀奉承，在他用关税碾压他们时乖乖就范。

Trump was preying upon that weakness as he threatened to seize Greenland and effectively destroy NATO, while warning of a new trade war if Europe resisted. In Davos on Wednesday, perhaps reacting to European pushback, he backed off somewhat: “I don’t have to use force” to acquire Greenland, he said. “I won’t use force.” Later in the day he withdrew, at least for now, the threat to impose new tariffs on Europe over the Greenland dispute.

特朗普正是利用这种弱点，威胁要夺取格陵兰岛，实质上摧毁北约，并警告如果欧洲抵抗，将发动新一轮贸易战。周三在达沃斯，或许是对欧洲反击的反应，他有所退让：“我不需要使用武力”来获取格陵兰岛，他说。“我不会使用武力。”当天晚些时候，他至少暂时撤回了因格陵兰岛争端而对欧洲施加新关税的威胁。

Earlier, he had posted a map showing Greenland, Canada and Venezuela all as part of the United States.

It has come to this: Canadian military planners reportedly are gaming how they might repel an American invasion with guerrilla tactics similar to those used by Afghan fighters.

事情已经发展到这个地步：据报道，加拿大军事规划者正在模拟如何用类似于阿富汗战士的游击战术击退美国入侵。

Fortunately, the shock of Trump’s Greenland demands may finally be leading world leaders to awaken to the American threat. (How weird even to type that!)

幸运的是，特朗普的格陵兰岛主张引起的震惊或许终于让世界领导人认识到来自美国的威胁。（这句话写出来都觉得怪怪的！）

“Until now, we tried to appease the new president in the White House,” Prime Minister Bart De Wever of Belgium said Tuesday. “We were very lenient, also with the tariffs, we were lenient, hoping to get his support for the Ukraine war.”

“到目前为止我们都是在安抚白宫的新总统，”比利时首相巴特·德韦弗周二说。“我们毫不计较，在关税问题上也没计较，只是希望换取他对乌克兰战争的支持。”

“But now so many red lines are being crossed,” he added. “Being a happy vassal is one thing, being a miserable slave is something else.”

“但现在太多红线被跨越，”他补充道。“做个心满意足的附庸是一回事，做个悲惨的奴隶是另一回事。”

The Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, made a similar point on social media: “Appeasement is always a sign of weakness,” he wrote. “Europe cannot afford to be weak — neither against its enemies, nor ally. Appeasement means no results, only humiliation.”

波兰总理唐纳德·图斯克在社交媒体上表达了类似观点：“绥靖永远是一种软弱的表现，”他写道。“欧洲不能在敌人面前软弱，也不能在盟友面前软弱。绥靖意味着毫无结果，只有屈辱。”

President Emmanuel Macron of France called Trump’s latest tariff threats “unacceptable.” He added, in a statement that notably equated the menace from Trump to that of Putin: “No intimidation or threat will influence us — neither in Ukraine, nor in Greenland.”

法国总统马克龙称特朗普最新的关税威胁“不可接受”。他在声明中特别将特朗普的威胁与普京相提并论：“没有任何恐吓或威胁会影响我们——无论在乌克兰，还是在格陵兰岛。”

The dangers of appeasement should, of course, have been fully absorbed by Europeans in the 1930s. As Winston Churchill warned Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain after the Munich agreement with Hitler in 1938: “You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor, and you will have war.”

当然，绥靖的危险应该是早在1930年代就被欧洲人彻底吸取的教训。正如丘吉尔在1938年慕尼黑协定后对张伯伦首相发出的警告：“你面临战争与耻辱的选择。你选择了耻辱，你将得到战争。”

President Richard Nixon and other conservative Americans likewise counseled the importance of standing up to Communists by quoting a supposed instruction by Lenin: “Probe with bayonets. If you encounter mush, proceed; if you encounter steel, withdraw.”

尼克松总统和其他保守派美国人同样引用据称是列宁的指示，强调对抗共产主义的重要性：“用刺刀试探。如果碰到软泥，继续前进；如果碰到钢铁，就撤退。”

Leaders who pushed back at Trump did better than the Europeans. One is China’s president, Xi Jinping, who retaliated aggressively against Trump’s tariffs by curbing exports of rare earth minerals — forcing Trump to back off. Indeed, Trump has since then been unusually conciliatory toward Beijing, allowing sales of advanced chips and quietly accepting China’s bullying of Japan and Taiwan.

那些对特朗普强硬回击的领导人得到了比欧洲人更好的结果。其中之一是中国国家主席习近平，他对特朗普的关税采取了强硬报复，限制稀土矿物出口——迫使特朗普退让。事实上，此后特朗普对北京的态度异常温和，允许先进芯片销售，并悄然接受中国对日本和台湾的霸凌。

The other is Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney. His predecessor, Justin Trudeau, had been conciliatory, but the result was mockery from Trump and calls for Canada to become America’s 51st state. Carney from the outset was polite but resistant, and Trump has been somewhat more respectful toward Canada since, even as Ottawa has pursued new partnerships elsewhere.

另一位是加拿大总理卡尼。他的前任特鲁多一直采取绥靖态度，结果换来特朗普的嘲讽和将加拿大变为美国第51州的要求。卡尼从一开始就礼貌但坚决抵抗，此后特朗普对加拿大的态度多少更为尊重，即便渥太华正在其他地方寻求新伙伴关系。

Just last week, Carney reached a landmark trade deal with China that laid the groundwork for much closer economic ties. Some Americans are angry, but Carney said bluntly that China is now a “more predictable” trade partner than the United States. And Trump, instead of erupting with venom, calmly accepted the Canada-China deal.

“Middle powers must act together because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu,” Carney said in a quite brilliant speech in Davos on Tuesday. He did not shake his fist or indulge in insults, but he indicated that the United States was no longer trustworthy and that Canada would find its own way forward.

“中等强国必须联合行动，因为我们要么上桌吃饭，要么摆上桌被人吃，”卡尼周二在达沃斯发表了一场相当精彩的演讲。他没有挥拳或侮辱，而是明确表示美国已不再可信，加拿大将找到自己的前进道路。

“When the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself,” he said, describing this as a “rupture” with the past. “But let’s be cleareyed about where this leads. A world of fortresses will be poorer, more fragile, and less sustainable.”

“当规则不再保护你时，你必须保护自己，”他说，将此描述为与过去的“决裂”。“但让我们清醒地看到这将通向何方。一个堡垒林立的世界将更贫穷、更脆弱、更不可持续。”

He’s right, and that is indeed the world that Trump is leading us all into. It’s a tragedy for Americans as well as our former allies.

他说得对，这正是特朗普把我们所有人带入的世界。这对美国人以及我们昔日的盟友来说都是一场悲剧。

That’s why it’s important that Europeans respond to new Trump tariffs, if he revives them, with retaliatory tariffs and their “bazooka” sanctions on American service companies. Indeed, it seems probable that Trump dialed back threats of force and of new tariffs because of the hostile reaction, including from the stock market.

正因如此，如果特朗普重启新关税，欧洲人必须以报复性关税和对美国服务企业的“火箭筒”制裁来回应。事实上，特朗普之所以收回武力和新关税的威胁，可能正是因为包括股市在内的敌对反应。

I reached out to Lord Patten, one of the European figures I most respect — a former senior figure in Britain’s Conservative Party, then governor of Hong Kong and later Europe’s foreign policy chief and chancellor of Oxford University. Patten returned my call just as a particularly erratic Trump was telling a press conference that America had never been more respected, and he could hear Trump’s voice in the background.

我联系了彭定康勋爵(Lord Patten)——我最尊敬的欧洲要人之一，他曾是英国保守党高层、香港总督、欧洲外交政策负责人以及牛津大学校长。在他回电时，正好赶上特朗普在新闻发布会上使用比平常还颠三倒四的方式，说着美国从未如此受尊重，我能在背景中听到特朗普的声音。

“You’re listening to those rambling mendacities,” he said, “of the demented leader of the free world.” Those are the words of a temperate British conservative who has been an outspoken fan of America throughout his career, yet who is today aghast at the sight of the United States destroying its soft power worldwide. Patten hopes European leaders will be willing to stand up to Trump because, “sooner or later, he has to be stopped.”

“你在听那个疯癫的自由世界领袖胡言乱语的谎言，”他说。这是一位温和的英国保守派的话，他一生都是美国的公开粉丝，如今却对美国在全球摧毁软实力的景象感到震惊。彭定康希望欧洲领导人能拿出反抗特朗普的意志，因为“迟早得阻止他”。

The paradox is that Trump is coercing Greenland on the basis of national security considerations and concerns about Russia and China. Yet what Putin covets far more than Greenland is the destruction of NATO, which Trump may now deliver. Russian newspapers and commentators are chortling.

矛盾的是，特朗普以国家安全考虑和对俄罗斯、中国的担忧为由胁迫格陵兰岛。然而，普京真正觊觎的远超格陵兰岛，而是摧毁北约，特朗普现在可能亲手帮他实现这个目标。俄罗斯报纸和评论员正在窃喜。

“Trans-Atlantic unity is over,” declared Kirill Dmitriev, a Putin associate. And all this is distracting global attention from Russia’s barbaric bombing of Ukraine and the need to support Ukrainians. As Patten told me, “Putin is the really big winner.”

“跨大西洋团结结束了，”普京的亲信基里尔·德米特里耶夫宣称。这一切正转移全球视线，让人们忽略俄罗斯对乌克兰的野蛮轰炸以及援助乌克兰的迫切需要。正如彭定康告诉我：“普京才是真正的大赢家。”

Indeed, if Trump were systematically trying to shore up the Kremlin and undermine the United States position in the world, he could hardly do better than he has over the last year. “China and Russia must be having a field day,” observed Kaja Kallas, the European Union foreign affairs chief.

的确，如果特朗普是在系统性地努力支持克里姆林宫并削弱美国在世界的地位，他过去一年的成绩已经好得不能再好。“中国和俄罗斯一定乐不可支，”欧盟外交事务负责人卡娅·卡拉斯评论道。

Today the presidents of Russia and the United States are both working to undermine NATO and the entire American-created system that since 1945 has greatly benefited all of us.

如今，俄罗斯总统和美国总统都在致力于削弱北约，以及美国自1945年以来创建的整个惠及我们所有人的体系。

It pains me as an American to urge leaders to defy my own country, and perhaps this seems disloyal. But it’s not. Seizing Greenland won’t benefit Americans any more than occupying Iraq did; we don’t want our children patrolling Nuuk or Toronto any more than we wanted them in Falluja or Kandahar.

作为美国人，敦促各国领导人反抗我自己的国家让我感到痛苦，或许也显得不忠。但并非如此。夺取格陵兰岛不会比占领伊拉克更能惠及美国人；我们不希望我们的孩子在努克或多伦多巡逻，正如我们当年不希望他们在费卢杰或坎大哈。

“Our friends and allies must stop indulging, enabling, and submitting to America’s madman president,” urged Larry Diamond, a democracy scholar at Stanford University. “Only forthright resistance and tough love will get us out of our downward spiral.”

“我们的朋友和盟友必须停止纵容、助长并屈从于美国的疯子总统，”斯坦福大学民主学者拉里·戴蒙德呼吁。“只有直截了当的抵抗和严厉的爱才能让我们摆脱恶性循环的趋势。”

So, please, world leaders: Don’t appease America.

所以，世界各国的领导人们：请不要绥靖美国。