欧盟着手对美国边境税提案发起法律挑战

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　　欧盟和其他贸易伙伴国的律师团队已展开准备工作，拟向美国的边境税提案发起法律挑战，这可能触发世界贸易组织(WTO)史上最大的案件。

　　The preliminary moves come as Republicans in Congress work to convince president Donald Trump² to back a shake-up of the US corporate³ tax system that would include a “border adjustment” system. It would see US imports subject to tax and export revenues exempted⁴.

　　目前，美国国会中的共和党人正试图说服唐纳德?特朗普(Donald Trump)总统支持对美国公司税制进行大幅改革，包括建立一套“边境调整”制度，它将意味着进口要纳税，而出口免税。

　　If the US were to adopt the mechanism⁵ it would represent the biggest shake-up in the global corporate tax system for almost a century, according to tax experts. Members of the WTO and trade experts warn that it would lead to a major challenge to the global trading system at a time when its most influential⁶ member is already tilting⁷ toward protectionism under Mr Trump.

　　税务专家们表示，如果美国采用这一机制，那将代表着全球企业税制出现近一个世纪以来最大调整。世贸组织成员国和贸易专家们警告，在世贸组织最有影响力的成员国在特朗普治下转向保护主义的情况下，这将给全球贸易体系带来一个重大挑战。

　　Jyrki Katainen, the European Commission vice-president who oversees⁸ EU trade policy, told the Financial Times that Europe wanted to avoid a trade war with the US as that would be “disastrous” for the world economy.

　　分管欧盟贸易政策的欧盟委员会(European Commission)副主席于尔基?卡泰宁(Jyrki Katainen)告诉英国《金融时报》，欧洲希望避免与美国发生贸易战争，因为那将对世界经济造成“灾难”。

　　But he made clear that the EU would be willing to act against the US whether it was related to the border tax proposal or the erection of other arbitrary trade barriers. “If somebody is behaving against our interests or against international rules in trade then we have our own mechanisms⁹ to react,” he said. “We have all the legal arrangements within the EU, but we are also part of global arrangements like the WTO and we want to respect the global rule base when it comes to trade.”

　　但他明确表示，欧盟将愿意对美国采取行动——无论是针对边境税提案，还是针对其他任性贸易壁垒的建立。“如果有人在行为上违反我们的利益或违反国际贸易规则，我们有我们自己的反应机制，”他表示。“我们在欧盟内部有所有的法律安排，但我们也是世贸组织等全球安排的一部分，我们希望在贸易方面尊重全球规则基础。”

　　A defeat in a case such as the border tax could lead to some $385bn a year in trade retaliation¹⁰ against the US, according to Chad Bown, an expert on WTO trade disputes at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

　　彼得森国际经济研究所(PIIE)的世贸组织贸易争端专家查德?鲍恩(Chad Bown)表示，在边境税这样的案件中败诉，可能导致每年约3850亿美元的针对美国的贸易报复。

　　That would be almost 100 times greater than the largest ever WTO finding. “The issue here is just orders of magnitude larger than what the WTO dispute settlement process typically is asked to manage,” Mr Bown said.

　　那将比世贸组织史上最大裁决的数额高出近100倍。“这里的问题比世贸组织争端解决程序通常处理的纠纷大得多，根本不在同一个数量级上，”鲍恩表示。

　　A senior trade official in Geneva said: “Our first assessment¹¹ is that it is definitely not going to be compatible with the WTO.”

　　日内瓦一位高级贸易官员表示：“我们的初步评估是，它肯定不会与世贸组织相容。”

　　Mr Trump has yet to endorse¹² the tax idea, pushed by Paul Ryan, House of Representatives speaker, and Kevin Brady, chairman of the House’s tax-writing ways and means committee.

　　特朗普尚未支持关税构想，这个构想是由众议院议长保罗?瑞恩(Paul Ryan)以及众议院负责起草税法的筹款委员会(Ways and Means committee)的主席凯文?布雷迪(Kevin Brady)推动的。

　　But advisers¹³ have praised it as a way of addressing what they see as the WTO’s unfair treatment of income-based tax systems such as the US’s.

　　但是顾问们赞赏这个构想，在他们看来，世贸组织对美国这样基于收入的税制没有公平对待，该构想将是解决这个问题的一个途径。

　　Mr Brady said he wanted to make sure that any reforms abided by global trading rules. “We are designing this to be WTO compatible,” he told the FT.

　　布雷迪表示，他希望确保任何改革都遵守全球贸易规则。“我们正从设计上确保它与世贸组织相容，”他对英国《金融时报》表示。

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