U.S. Imports from China Have Fallen by Less Than U.S. Data Indicate

 With new tariffs on China back in the headlines, this post seeks to offer some perspective on how much China’s exports have really been affected by multiple rounds of U.S. tariffs and export restrictions over the past seven years. The key takeaway is that U.S. imports from China have decreased by much less than has been reported in official U.S. statistics. As a result, the recent tariff increase on China could have a larger impact on the U.S. economy than is suggested by official U.S. data on the China import share, especially if favorable tariff treatment for direct-to-consumer imports is ended.

A Brief Background

This post will use as a starting point the trade actions taken against China beginning in July 2018. At that time, the U.S. imposed the first of multiple rounds of tariff increases. In the process, the statutory tariff rate on U.S. imports from China increased from 2.7 percent to 17.5 percent, which was largely left unchanged during the Biden administration. The Trump administration has now imposed additional 10 percent tariffs on all Chinese goods—including goods that had been excluded from previous tariff increases, such as consumer electronics—and has ended (a termination that is paused for now) preferential treatments for so-called de minimis imports, which had incurred zero tariffs previously so long as they were valued at less than $800 and met certain other requirements.

The chart below plots the evolution of the U.S. trade balance with China and some other major trading partners. The U.S.’s trade deficits with other countries have increased continuously since 2018, which in part has reflected a shifting of manufacturing production chains out of China into third countries. The balance with China has either increased or decreased, depending on which country’s data one chooses to believe. This discrepancy is the focus of the rest of this post. For simplicity, the data shows only trade with China alone; the story remains the same if one adds trade with Hong Kong.

The U.S.’s Trade Deficit Increased Broadly

Source: IMF Direction of Trade Statistics.
Note: China trade balance reported by the U.S. excludes insurance and freight cost of imports, while China’s reported surplus with the U.S. includes these costs.

U.S. Imports from China Did Not Decline as Much as Widely Believed

An obvious question is “how much have U.S. imports from China decreased?” This seems like it should be an easy question to answer, but it turns out not to be. As shown in the chart below, the simplest and most frequent answer is “a lot.” According to U.S. statistics, imports from China fell from 21.6 percent of total U.S. imports in 2018 to 13.4 percent in 2024. The nominal value fell from $505 billion to $439 billion, a $66 billion decline.

China’s Share of U.S. Imports Has Decreased a Lot…or Only a Little

Sources: U.S. Census; China General Administration of Customs; IMF Direction of Trade Statistics via Haver and CEIC.

However, an alternative picture is also shown in this same chart. According to China’s own data, its exports as a share of the U.S. import market have only declined by 2.5 percentage points, less than one-third of the decline shown in the U.S. data. In fact, China’s data says that its exports actually increased by $91.2 billion, to $524 billion (exports were even higher during the pandemic, but have since declined). Moreover, while the U.S.’s reported trade deficit with China from the beginning of 2018 to 2024 declined from $375 billion to $295 billion, China’s reported trade surplus with the U.S. increased from $278 billion to $360 billion.

What’s going on here? Mechanically, as illustrated in the chart below, there has been a huge shift in the discrepancy between what the U.S. says it imports from China and what China says it exports to the U.S. (hereafter called the “import gap”). Simply stated, the U.S. is saying it buys from China a lot less than what China says it is selling. The chart shows in solid red this gap and in dashed red the average gap before 2018. A downward shift clearly began in 2018, with the difference between the average line and the observed data in 2024 amounting to $158 billion. There has been only a partial offset from a larger positive gap with the rest of the world, as shown in the solid and dashed blue lines, with data through 2023. As a result, there appears to be more than $100 billion in “missing imports” headed for the U.S. when comparing the U.S. and the rest of the world’s data, virtually all of which can be attributed to China.

The U.S.’s ‘Missing Imports’

Sources: U.S. Census; China General Administration of Customs; IMF Direction of Trade Statistics via Haver and CEIC.
Notes: The red and blue solid lines show the difference between U.S. reported imports from China and the world excluding China and those trading partners’ reported exports to the U.S. The dashed lines show the respective averages from 2013 to 2017.

While it is normal for there to be discrepancies between countries’ mirrored import and export data, the shifts observed with China are much too large and persistent to be explained by normal variation or technical factors. The scatter plot below shows the average and 2023 values of the U.S. import gap for all of the U.S.’s trade partners. China is clearly an extreme outlier, both in terms of size and direction of movement (from positive to negative, into the lower right corner). There are notable offsetting movements in Taiwan and, to a lesser extent, Vietnam, but these are much smaller than China’s. The trade gap with China is not primarily driven by a shifting of trade through third countries. Such shifting appears to be accurately reflected in U.S. statistics, with some partial exceptions. Rather, it is an issue of measurement.

China Is an Extreme Outlier

Source: IMF Direction of Trade Statistics.
Notes: “Gap” refers to the U.S.’s reported imports from a country minus the country’s reported exports to the U.S. The horizontal axis shows the average value of the gap before 2018, and the vertical axis shows the value of the gap in 2023; for example, for China, the gap averaged +$17 billion before 2018 and almost -$80 billion in 2023. The gap in Ireland primarily reflects corporate tax minimization strategies and is not relevant for the discussion in this post.

Export Taxes in China, U.S. Tariffs, and De Minimis Distort the Trade Picture

It is not possible to precisely explain this discrepancy. However, as discussed in this note from 2021 using data available through 2020, an important set of factors involves fictitious exports from China to take advantage of certain value-added tax rebate benefits within China, and underinvoicing of U.S. imports to reduce tariff duties owed to the U.S. government. In 2020 these factors were estimated to have led to an overstatement of China’s exports to the U.S. of about $12 billion and an understatement of U.S. imports from China of around $55 billion, accounting for about $67 billion of the gap at the time.

Perhaps an even more important factor now is the de minimis exemption that has allowed imports from China to enter the U.S. duty free and with light documentation. The value threshold for this exemption was raised from $200 to $800 in 2016, and since then a combination of high import tariffs and innovations in direct-to-consumer business models have contributed to explosive growth. This trade is at least partially measured in China’s export statistics but is absent in U.S. import statistics. The chart below shows the available data for this type of trade as reported in China’s official export statistics and estimated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which is not included in U.S. import statistics.

Direct-to-Consumer Trade Is Surging

Sources: China General Administration of Customs; U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Note: The lines labeled “China” are official Chinese customs export statistics of HTS codes 9804 and 9805, while the line labeled “U.S. from” reflects U.S. Customs and Border Protection estimates.

Such trade is not well measured but is very substantial and growing rapidly. For example, as discussed in a recent note by the Congressional Research Service, the U.S. CBP has estimated that total de minimis exports from China (including via Hong Kong) accounted for about 67 percent of the U.S.’s total de minimis imports during fiscal years 2018 through 2021. According to data estimated by the CBP, this total was about $200 billion, implying an average of about $34 billion per fiscal year from China. During this same period, China’s officially reported de minimus exports to the U.S. and Hong Kong totaled $21 billion, less than one-fifth of the CBP’s estimate.

China’s own statistics likely undercount, or at least misappropriate by destination, this trade, but nonetheless can be useful to help extrapolate the trend to the end of last year. During U.S. fiscal years 2022 through 2024, China’s total official de minimis exports to the U.S. and Hong Kong surged by 176 percent, to $25.7 billion, with the total to the world growing by 136 percent, to $88.6 billion. The CBP’s latest fiscal year 2024 figures for the U.S. in total (separate figures for China are not available) increased by almost 50 percent to almost $65 billion. Given these trends, it appears highly plausible that the U.S.’s de minimis imports from China increased by at least 50 percent, or even more than doubled, and were in excess of $50 billion last year.

Concluding Thoughts

The data presented in this post illustrates how large increases in tariffs against China have contributed to distortions in trade statistics caused, in part, by private sector efforts to avoid payments on customs duties. In fact, the rapid expansion of low-value direct-to-consumer sales from China has allowed a very substantial amount of trade to completely bypass all of the tariffs that have been imposed on China beginning in 2018. This post has suggested that there appears to be upwards of $100 billion in “missing imports” in U.S. data, and quite possibly at least $50 billion may be accounted for by this de minimis trade. This suggests that U.S. consumers could face larger consequences than meet the eye from the recent 10 percentage point tariff increase if the de minimis exception is ended for China and Chinese sellers do not slash their profit margins by reducing their export prices. For example, a sweater bought from China through an online retail site would rise in price to the extent the firm does not offset the new 33.5 percent tariff charge (16 percent general duty plus 7.5 percent on Chinese imports applied in 2019 plus 10 percent applied this year), not even including additional handling charges that the seller may impose to account for more costly customs procedures.

美国刹不住的贸易逆差, 根本原因是什么?

编者：货币是贸易的媒介，货币的流动带来经济的繁荣。美元贸易的逆差让大量美元流出美国，但是这些美元在国际贸易中作为结算货币，让美元在世界范围内流通，成为世界货币。强劲的需求让美元利率走低，降低了信贷成本。除此之外，境外美元也会投入美国股市，房市，以及留学与旅游，给美国经济曾经活力。特朗普发动的关税战，不仅增加贸易成本，损害企业利益，也会让人们认为美国政策的不稳定，对美国市场失去信心，从而引发美元贬值，推高利率，使经济进入衰退。

 

2021年美国国际资本净流入约为1.10万亿美元，其中私人资本净流入约为1.03万亿美元；2022年美国国际资本净流入达到1.62万亿美元，其中私人资本净流入约为1.60万亿美元；2023年美国国际资本净流入约为0.80万亿美元，其中私人资本净流入约为0.70万亿美元；2024年美国国际资本净流入为1.04万亿美元，其中私人资本净流入约为0.92万亿美元。他们购买了美国天量的股票，美债，企业债及各类金融衍生品，正如2024年，美国上万亿国际资本净流入中，外资净买入美国股票3082亿美元，其中私人外资净买入美股2890亿美元，这每年源源不断的千亿规模资金，不停的为美国金融市场的繁荣和美国社会的消费旺盛添柴加薪，同时也与美国政府、美联储一起共同捍卫着强美元地位。

不过随着川普今天的关税政策落地，原来全球美元、全球商品和美国金融市场的循环将不再存在，今天美元指数的暴跌意味着全球资本正从美国逃离，而随之而来的将是美股的震荡下行，而随着关税战进入国家层面，抛售美债也成了谈判的必然选择之一。而疫情之后美国的复苏实质上是K型复苏，而K的下端，也就是底层消费者的情况其实越来越糟。但原来K的上端（高收入阶层）花得够多，就能把整体消费支出维持在一个量级上，这个系统就还撑得住，而维持住高收入阶层消费的收入不是基于工资，而是基于他们的金融账户，他们花的是“账面收益”，一旦这部分缩水，消费支出会立刻大幅压缩，随之而来的就是美国正式的进入衰退。

I Knew the Signal Chat Leak Reminded Me of Something. Now I Know What.

 Luke Winkie

Thu, March 27, 2025 at 2:45 AM PDT

By now you know that several members of the Trump administration unwittingly leaked high-level discussions about military strikes against Yemen to the Atlantic. They pulled this off with Dr. Strangelove–esque flair, by accidentally including Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg in a Signal group where those discussions were taking place.

This has raised a few pertinent questions about the integrity of the U.S. intelligence apparatus, because—generally speaking—you don’t want the nation’s CIA director and defense secretary directing bombing operations over a consumer chatting app.

Smarter people than I have analyzed the legal and political fallout from the scandal. I was attracted to something far dumber. Reading through the full transcript released Wednesday, it became clear to me that beyond a secretive attack-planning committee, the dynamics of the discussion reminded me of the typical boys group chat. All of the archetypes and characters I’m familiar with in my own life were there. So I took it upon myself to annotate the thread like the frat house that has become our executive branch.

You can trust me on this. I went to the University of Texas.

Let’s go. Here’s national security adviser Mike Waltz:

Team–establishing a principles group for coordination on Houthis, particularly for over the next 72 hours. My deputy Alex Wong is pulling together a tiger team at deputies/agency Chief of Staff level following up from the meeting in the Sit Room this morning for action items and will be sending that out later this evening.

 

Pls provide the best staff POC from your team for us to coordinate with over the next couple days and over the weekend. Thx.

 Each and every boys chat is centralized around a single figure who is willing to throw the loose semblance of a plan up in the air. Ideally this occurs midway through the first beer of the night, which is when the possibility of an imminent group hang is at its most enticing. Waltz is absolutely identifying himself as the Reservations Guy here. Or at least the person most likely to suggest hitting a bar for Thursday Night Football approximately 25 minutes before kickoff. (Again, this occurs most often during those wondrous early moments of light intoxication.)

A day later, Vice President J.D. Vance chimes in.

Team, I am out for the day doing an economic event in Michigan. But I think we are making a mistake.

 

3 percent of US trade runs through the suez. 40 percent of European trade does. There is a real risk that the public doesn’t understand this or why it’s necessary. The strongest reason to do this is, as POTUS said, to send a message.

 

I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now. There’s a further risk that we see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices.

There are a couple things going on here, but the most pressing revelation is that J.D. Vance is questioning the wisdom of the president—and, therefore, is talking shit about someone who’s not in the boys chat. This is a controversial practice but also one of the great traditions of boys chat culture. At any given moment I would say that at least 60 percent of all digital communication is centralized around the admonishing, humiliation, or dirty laundry–airing of someone deemed to not be worthy of boys chat privileges. Clearly, Vance is a prime instigator. With this evidence, I am willing to bet that there isn’t anyone in the entire Trump administration that he hasn’t privately bashed on Signal, Discord, Twitter DM, or whatever else. (If you’d like my Signal handle to add me, let me know.)

One more Vance quote we need to cover:

 am willing to support the consensus of the team and keep these concerns to myself. But there is a strong argument for delaying this a month, doing the messaging work on why this matters, seeing where the economy is, etc.

So, not only is Vance a drama instigator, he is also the sort of guy who pulls that “highly reluctant acquiescence” move. You know, the guy who complains about the price, the seats, and the food before finally agreeing to come along to a baseball game. (Upon arrival, he is practically guaranteed to sink into one of those dissociative temper tantrums unique to men.) Only a few messages into the transcript, and I think I can say with confidence that Vance is the group chat Least Valuable Player.

Moving on to CIA Director John Ratcliffe …

From CIA perspective, we are mobilizing assets to support now but a delay would not negatively impact us and additional time would be used to identify better starting points for coverage on Houthi leadership

There is always one member of a boys chat who cannot write to save his life. “Not negatively?” That’s the type of double negative that makes me want to gouge my eyes out.

On to Pete Hegseth.

VP:

 

I understand your concerns – and fully support you raising w/ POTUS. Important considerations, most of which are tough to know how they play out (economy, Ukraine peace, Gaza, etc). I think messaging is going to be tough no matter what – nobody knows who the Houthis are – which is why we would need to stay focused on: 1) Biden failed & 2) Iran funded.

 

Waiting a few weeks or a month does not fundamentally change the calculus. 2 immediate risks on waiting: 1) this leaks, and we look indecisive; 2) Israel takes an action first – or Gaza cease fire falls apart – and we don’t get to start this on our own terms. We can manage both.

 

We are prepared to execute, and if I had final go or no go vote, I believe we should. This [is] not about the Houthis. I see it as two things: 1) Restoring Freedom of Navigation, a core national interest; and 2) Reestablish deterrence, which Biden cratered.

 

But, we can easily pause. And if we do, I will do all we can to enforce 100% OPSEC. I welcome other thoughts.

 Considering my impression of the man during the nomination process was that he was a maniac Fox News guy known for crushing breakfast gin and tonics, Hegseth comes off as reasonable here. My boys chat features one member, a career wonk that works at Politico, who tries to distill all of our lengthy arguments—whether it be about Israel or the Detroit Pistons—into sensible both sides–ism. Hegseth comes off as that type of peacemaker, while still managing to ultimately advocate for his own causes, which is the true skill of this role. “I hear your concerns, but we should, actually, bomb the Houthis” and “Donovan Mitchell is having a great season, but Cade Cunningham does indeed deserve first-team All-NBA” are essentially the same approach.

A Waltz double-text follows, which is too boring and too lengthy to quote at length. But I do need to add that double-texting is a classic Reservations Guy tactic. He wants to get stuff locked in. Afterward, J.D. Vance chimes in to do some more whining.

@Pete Hegseth if you think we should do it let’s go.

I just hate bailing Europe out again.

The line-break with the last-minute expression of dissent! Lord have mercy. I cannot fully articulate how much I don’t want to be in a chat with Vance. It needs to be said that he is ostensibly the second most powerful person in the Trump government, and nonetheless continues to be steamrolled by a bunch of irradiated military guys—undercutting the pastoral isolationism he envisions for the future of the nation at every turn. Hope it’s worth it, buddy!

Next we have a text from the initials SM, which everyone assumes to be deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.

As I heard it, the president was clear: green light, but we soon make clear to Egypt and Europe what we expect in return. We also need to figure out how to enforce such a requirement. EG, if Europe doesn’t renumerate, then what? If the US successfully restores freedom of navigation at great cost there needs to be some further economic gain extracted in return.

He’s the Venmo guy. Stephen Miller is the Venmo guy. He never lets a group Uber go unitemized. “Hey man, would you mind sending me $3.72 for the $15 pizza we split?”

Hegseth:

TEAM UPDATE:

TIME NOW (1144et): Weather is FAVORABLE. Just CONFIRMED w/CENTCOM we are a GO for mission launch.

1215et: F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike package)

1345: “Trigger Based” F-18 1st Strike Window Starts (Target Terrorist is @ his Known Location so SHOULD BE ON TIME) – also, Strike Drones Launch (MQ-9s)

Big War Guy Knows War Words, like when your friends spiral off into a highly technical discussion of some competitive multiplayer game. My primary takeaway of Hegseth, from reading these messages, is that he’s a bit of a dork.

Vance chimes in with a lifeless “I will say a prayer for victory,” which oozes with reluctant participation, and then gets confused by a Waltz text, responding, hilariously, with “What?” Waltz clarifies that our military forces destroyed an entire building to kill exactly one guy—a perfect distillation of the psychotic foreign policy orthodoxy that has plagued our great nation for decades—and wraps things up with three emoji: a fist, an American flag, and a fireball. Reservations Guys do love when a plan comes together.

Right before the transcript cuts off, Susie Wiles—Trump’s chief of staff who has been silent throughout—offers “kudos to all.” (“Really great, god bless.”) There is something both horrifying and vaguely gratifying to know that no matter what you are doing in a boys chat—finding a bar with a patio or organizing drone strikes—there is always going to be a lurker or two. Of course, a good rule of thumb is to make sure that lurker isn’t a journalist whom you’ve just handed the scoop of the year.

The liberal international order is slowly coming apart

 

Its collapse could be sudden and irreversible

At first glance, the world economy looks reassuringly resilient. America has boomed even as its trade war with China has escalated. Germany has withstood the loss of Russian gas supplies without suffering an economic disaster. War in the Middle East has brought no oil shock. Missile-firing Houthi rebels have barely touched the global flow of goods. As a share of global GDP, trade has bounced back from the pandemic and is forecast to grow healthily this year.

Look deeper, though, and you see fragility. For years the order that has governed the global economy since the second world war has been eroded. Today it is close to collapse. A worrying number of triggers could set off a descent into anarchy, where might is right and war is once again the resort of great powers. Even if it never comes to conflict, the effect on the economy of a breakdown in norms could be fast and brutal.

At first glance, the world economy looks reassuringly resilient. America has boomed even as its trade war with China has escalated. Germany has withstood the loss of Russian gas supplies without suffering an economic disaster. War in the Middle East has brought no oil shock. Missile-firing Houthi rebels have barely touched the global flow of goods. As a share of global GDP, trade has bounced back from the pandemic and is forecast to grow healthily this year.

Look deeper, though, and you see fragility. For years the order that has governed the global economy since the second world war has been eroded. Today it is close to collapse. A worrying number of triggers could set off a descent into anarchy, where might is right and war is once again the resort of great powers. Even if it never comes to conflict, the effect on the economy of a breakdown in norms could be fast and brutal.

As we report, the disintegration of the old order is visible everywhere. Sanctions are used four times as much as they were during the 1990s; America has recently imposed “secondary” penalties on entities that support Russia’s armies. A subsidy war is under way, as countries seek to copy China’s and America’s vast state backing for green manufacturing. Although the dollar remains dominant and emerging economies are more resilient, global capital flows are starting to fragment, as our special report explains.

The institutions that safeguarded the old system are either already defunct or fast losing credibility. The World Trade Organisation turns 30 next year, but will have spent more than five years in stasis, owing to American neglect. The IMF is gripped by an identity crisis, caught between a green agenda and ensuring financial stability. The un security council is paralysed. And, as we report, supranational courts like the International Court of Justice are increasingly weaponised by warring parties. Last month American politicians including Mitch McConnell, the leader of Republicans in the Senate, threatened the International Criminal Court with sanctions if it issues arrest warrants for the leaders of Israel, which also stands accused of genocide by South Africa at the International Court of Justice.

So far fragmentation and decay have imposed a stealth tax on the global economy: perceptible, but only if you know where to look. Unfortunately, history shows that deeper, more chaotic collapses are possible—and can strike suddenly once the decline sets in. The first world war killed off a golden age of globalisation that many at the time assumed would last for ever. In the early 1930s, following the onset of the Depression and the Smoot-Hawley tariffs, America’s imports collapsed by 40% in just two years. In August 1971 Richard Nixon unexpectedly suspended the convertibility of dollars into gold; only 19 months later, the Bretton Woods system of fixed-exchange rates fell apart.

Today a similar rupture feels all too imaginable. The return of Donald Trump to the White House, with his zero-sum worldview, would continue the erosion of institutions and norms. The fear of a second wave of cheap Chinese imports could accelerate it. Outright war between America and China over Taiwan, or between the West and Russia, could cause an almighty collapse.

In many of these scenarios, the loss will be more profound than many people think. It is fashionable to criticise untrammelled globalisation as the cause of inequality, the global financial crisis and neglect of the climate. But the achievements of the 1990s and 2000s—the high point of liberal capitalism—are unmatched in history. Hundreds of millions escaped poverty in China as it integrated into the global economy. The infant-mortality rate worldwide is less than half what it was in 1990. The percentage of the global population killed by state-based conflicts hit a post-war low of 0.0002% in 2005; in 1972 it was nearly 40 times as high. The latest research shows that the era of the “Washington consensus”, which today’s leaders hope to replace, was one in which poor countries began to enjoy catch-up growth, closing the gap with the rich world.

The decline of the system threatens to slow that progress, or even throw it into reverse. Once broken, it is unlikely to be replaced by new rules. Instead, world affairs will descend into their natural state of anarchy that favours banditry and violence. Without trust and an institutional framework for co-operation, it will become harder for countries to deal with the 21st century’s challenges, from containing an arms race in artificial intelligence to collaborating in space. Problems will be tackled by clubs of like-minded countries. That can work, but will more often involve coercion and resentment, as with Europe’s carbon border-tariffs or China’s feud with the IMF. When co-operation gives way to strong-arming, countries have less reason to keep the peace.

In the eyes of the Chinese Communist Party, Vladimir Putin or other cynics, a system in which might is right would be nothing new. They see the liberal order not as an enactment of lofty ideals but an exercise of raw American power—power that is now in relative decline.

Gradually, then suddenly

It is true that the system established after the second world war achieved a marriage between America’s internationalist principles and its strategic interests. Yet the liberal order also brought vast benefits to the rest of the world. Many of the world’s poor are already suffering from the inability of the IMF to resolve the sovereign-debt crisis that followed the covid-19 pandemic. Middle-income countries such as India and Indonesia hoping to trade their way to riches are exploiting opportunities created by the old order’s fragmentation, but will ultimately rely on the global economy staying integrated and predictable. And the prosperity of much of the developed world, especially small, open economies such as Britain and South Korea, depends utterly on trade. Buttressed by strong growth in America, it may seem as if the world economy can survive everything that is thrown at it. It can’t. ■

纽约时报评论：载入历史的一天，美国的耻辱日

 本文作者简介：

布雷特·斯蒂芬斯是《纽约时报》的保守派专栏作家（不是左派），主要撰写外交政策、国内政治和文化议题。虽被视为保守派，但他对共和党的方向持批评态度。他支持自由企业、自由贸易、言论自由以及保护国内外民主制度。他曾在《华尔街日报》担任外交事务专栏作家，并因此获得2013年普利策评论奖。他的著作《美国的撤退：新孤立主义与即将到来的全球失序》探讨了美国外交政策，2022年还被俄罗斯政府终身禁止入境。

正文：

1941年8月，在日本偷袭珍珠港前约四个月，富兰克林·罗斯福与温斯顿·丘吉尔在纽芬兰普拉森西亚湾的军舰上会面，共同签署了《大西洋宪章》——这份由世界主要民主强国就战后世界"共同原则"所作的联合宣言。

该宪章的核心要点包括："不谋求领土或其他方面的扩张"；"归还被强行剥夺主权权利和自治权的国家"；"免于恐惧和匮乏的自由"；海洋自由；以及"平等获取世界贸易和原材料的权利，这些对各国经济繁荣至关重要"。

这份宪章及其后建立的联盟，是美国外交艺术的巅峰之作。然而，就在本周五的椭圆形办公室，世界目睹了截然相反的一幕。乌克兰饱受煎熬的民主领导人泽连斯基来到华盛顿，准备牺牲一切——除了他国家的自由、安全和基本理性——以换取特朗普总统的支持。作为回报，他却遭到了白宫史上最不诚实、最粗俗、最不友善的主人对其礼仪的责难。

如果设想罗斯福曾命令丘吉尔以任何条件向阿道夫·希特勒求和，并将英国的煤炭储备交给美国以换取零安全保障，这或许可以类比特朗普对泽连斯基所做之事。无论如何评价泽连斯基的战略失误——不论是未能表现出特朗普要求的极度谄媚，还是在面对JD万斯虚伪挑衅时难以保持冷静——这一天无疑是美国外交史上的耻辱。

我们将何去何从？

如果说这场外交灾难中还有一丝希望的话，那就是泽连斯基没有签署财政部长斯科特·贝森特本月强迫他接受的乌克兰矿产协议。在这个宛如黑帮保护费勒索集团的政府中，贝森特扮演的角色就像《教父》中的汤姆·黑根。诚然，美国应该因帮助乌克兰自卫而获得某种形式的回报——但乌克兰已经摧毁了俄罗斯相当部分的军事力量，这本身就是最大的回报，其次是乌克兰在创新低成本无人机战争方面的突破性贡献，这些创新成果五角大楼无疑将迫不及待地学习和采纳。

但如果特朗普政府追求的是经济回报，最佳方案应是与欧洲伙伴合作，冻结并征用俄罗斯资产，将其存入专门账户，供乌克兰购买美国制造的武器。若美国不愿这样做，欧洲国家应当采取行动：让乌克兰转而依靠达索、萨博、莱茵金属、BAE系统等欧洲国防承包商的武器，看看"美国优先"支持者对此作何反应。希望这能成为欧洲国家尽快、大规模投资其日渐耗竭军力的另一个推动力，不仅为加强北约，也为防范北约可能的解体做准备。

此外还有第二个契机：虽然特朗普对泽连斯基的羞辱可能会取悦MAGA支持者，但对大多数选民而言，包括现在仍有近30%认为与乌克兰站在一起符合美国利益的共和党人，这种行为恐难以获得认同。尽管大多数美国人希望看到乌克兰战争结束，但他们几乎肯定不希望战争以弗拉基米尔·普京的条件收场。

特朗普政府也不应如此轻易妥协。俄罗斯在乌克兰的胜利，包括允许莫斯科巩固战果并在下一轮攻势前恢复实力的停火协议，将产生与塔利班在阿富汗胜利完全相同的效果：鼓励美国的敌人更加肆无忌惮地采取侵略行动。

这些正是有良知的保守派人士应当强调的观点：肯塔基州参议员米奇·麦康奈尔和内布拉斯加州众议员唐·培根——两位在乌克兰问题上坚守原则的共和党人——能否带领志同道合的保守派代表团前往基辅？

更为重要的是，这应成为民主党人的历史性机遇。乔·拜登称这是自由世界未来的"决定性十年"时洞见非凡；只可惜他作为信使过于软弱和谨慎。

但民主党中不乏具有军事和安全背景的强硬派人物——如科罗拉多州众议员杰森·克罗、马萨诸塞州众议员塞思·莫尔顿和密歇根州参议员伊丽莎·斯洛特金——他们可以将杜鲁门和约翰·F·肯尼迪的精神重新注入民主党。这种关于坚韧和自由的信息，或许也能打动至少部分特朗普选民，那些在11月为了建设更美好的美国——而非更强大的俄罗斯——而投票的选民们。

然而，无法回避的事实是，这个周五是一个黑暗的日子——对乌克兰、对自由世界、对那个曾经代表《大西洋宪章》原则的美国声誉而言，都是如此。

罗斯福和里根必定在地下翻身，丘吉尔和撒切尔同样如此。如今，重新夺回美国荣誉、将其从那些在白宫玷污它的政治匪徒手中拯救出来的责任，落在了我们其余人的肩上。