保護主義回歸的謎團? 川普時期美中貿易戰的官僚因素

Abstract

長久以來，美國被認為是自由貿易的國度，實證研究也表明：美國對外貿易制度的設計，讓總統較偏好自由貿易的政策。當美國第45任總統川普（Donald J. Trump）上任後，卻對中國發動「美中貿易戰」（U.S.-China Trade War），為美國的自由貿易歷史投下了一顆震撼彈，也讓人不禁好奇：為何川普要發動美中貿易戰，讓保護主義再次回歸？ 對於「川普政府為何發動美中貿易戰？」這個問題，當今研究多聚焦美國與中國權力消長的國際政治視角，認為貿易戰是美中兩國爭霸下的產物，美國懼怕中國成為世界霸權，故發動貿易戰打擊中國，避免中國稱霸；攻勢現實主義（offensive realism）學者米爾斯海默（John Mearsheimer）更指出：中國的經濟增長在現實主義之下，會成為美國的威脅，因為國家首重生存，故中美必然走向對抗，彷彿預知了中美貿易戰的發生。惟此類視角太過巨觀，忽略「國內政治」對「國際關係」的影響，也並未考量「川普不具有從政經驗」此一命題；另一方面，若以外交決策視角解釋美中貿易戰，現有文獻多聚焦於川普個人特質，及其作為政治素人、長年從商的特殊經歷。但這樣的視角並沒有考慮川普身邊「白宮顧問」（The White House advisers）的決策影響力，而對於川普這樣沒有經驗的總統，顧問的角色更顯重要，其不但為總統提供意見，也影響著美中貿易戰的進程。 有鑑於國際權力政治與單一外交決策視角，無法完整解釋美中貿易戰為何發生，故本研究跳脫傳統外交決策模式與國際權力政治視角，使用「因果過程回溯法」（causal-process tracing），研究川普身邊的白宮顧問顧問，是如何影響總統對貿易的偏好，以及顧問之間的競合、發言、顧問與總統之間的互動，是如何影響美中貿易戰中的貿易決策。研究結果有三：首先，在白宮內部，立場不同的顧問彼此會相互競合與相互遊說，試圖影響其他顧問與總統對自由貿易的偏好；其次，顧問會在貿易戰不同階段公開釋放與過去自身立場不同的貿易政策線索，以便在貿易戰不同階段中的威脅或協議承諾對中國更具有可信度；第三；當總統缺乏政治歷練時，總統對於自由貿易的偏好並非固定，而是會受到顧問之間的競合而改變。整體而言，本文對於美中貿易戰的相關文獻提供「顧問─總統互動」的新分析視角。

The U.S. has long been considered as home to free trade, and previous studies also show that the Presidents of the U.S. usually prefer free trade policies. However, Donald Trump, the 45th President of the U.S., dropped a bombshell by initiating the trade war against China. Many wonder why Trump initiated the U.S.-China Trade War, bringing back the trade protectionism. To explain why the Trump administration initiated the trade war, some scholars claim that the trade war against China can be explained through power politics, that the U.S. waged the trade war in order to undermine China’s global influence. John Mearsheimer, who develops the theory of offensive realism, claims that the economic growth of China would finally make itself a threat to the U.S., so war will inevitably occur between these two superpowers. These explanations, however, ignore the fact that domestic politics may also influence international politics. Besides, these approaches do not take into account the fact that Trump was politically inexperienced before becoming the president. Others, on the other hand, may analyze the trade war using models of foreign policy decision making, focusing on the personal characteristics and experiences of Trump. Nevertheless, this approach assumes away the influence of the White House advisors over President Trump on to making decisions about the trade war against China. Considering the existing approaches are inadequate to explain why the Trump administration initiated the trade war against China, this study adopts the qualitative method of causal-process tracing to analyze how the interactions between these advisors and president Trump influenced American trade policy making process during the trade war. The results are threefold. First, in the White House, the advisors, with different viewpoints of free trade, interacted with each other in order to reinforce or change the trade preferences of others, including the president. Second, these advisers served as “cue givers”, making the threat or promise to settlement from the Trump administration as a whole more credible to China at different stages of the trade war through publicly endorsing trade policy adjustments against policy positions they used to hold. Third, the president has no fixed preferences for free trade, as often assumed. Rather, such preferences may change due to lobbies and persuasions from the advisers when the president is as politically inexperienced as Trump. Overall, this study contributes to emerging research on US-China trade war with the new analytical approach of “advisors-president interactions”.