Foreign products from places such as China and Japan would be subject to punitive US import taxes if their governments were found guilty of currency manipulation by Washington under draft legislation unveiled ­yesterday.
根据昨日公布的立法草案，如果华盛顿方面认定中国和日本等国的政府操纵汇率，来自这些地方的产品将面临美国的惩罚性进口税。
The measures contained in bipartisan bills presented in both houses of Congress come amid an escalation in rhetoric in Washington surrounding recent foreign exchange swings fed by concerns over the impact on American competitiveness and the US recovery of a rising dollar.
这些措施包含在两党联合向国会两院提交的法案中。目前华盛顿方面围绕汇率波动的言论提高了分贝，其背后的推动力是有人担忧美元走高对美国竞争力和美国经济复苏的影响。

“Few actions by foreign governments do more to disrupt free and fair trade and to harm US job growth than currency manipulation,” said Sander Levin, the veteran Democrat from Michigan leading the push in the lower House of Representatives.
“外国政府采取的行动中，没有什么比操纵汇率更容易破坏自由和公平的贸易，损害美国的就业增长，”众议员桑德•莱文(Sander Levin)表示，这位密歇根州民主党老将在众议院牵头这项努力。
“Currency manipulation has had a major impact on millions of American middle-class jobs. We are sending an unequivocal message today that action is needed to rein in this abuse.”
“汇率操纵已经对数以百万计的美国中产阶级职位产生了重大影响。今天，我们发出一个明确的信息，即需要采取行动遏止这种滥用行为。”
A majority of both houses of Congress have called for the US to introduce binding currency provisions into trade agreements being negotiated by Washington, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership with Japan and 10 other countries now nearing completion.
国会两院的多数议员都已呼吁美国将具有约束力的汇率条款引入华盛顿正在谈判的贸易协定，包括与日本和另外10个国家已接近谈妥的《跨太平洋伙伴关系协定》（Trans-Pacific Partnership，简称TPP）。
But that push, backed heavily by the US auto industry, has been resisted by the White House and the US Treasury in particular, which insists that forums such as the G20 and institutions such as the International Monetary Fund are better suited to deal with currency matters than trade agreements.
但是，得到美国汽车业大力支持的上述呼声，迄今受到奥巴马政府、尤其是美国财政部的抵制，该部坚称，20国集团(G20)这样的论坛，以及国际货币基金组织(IMF)这样的机构，比贸易协定更适合处理汇率问题。
If passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama, the new legislation would allow US industries to lobby Washington to impose countervailing duties on goods from countries that met a series of tests for currency manipulation. Similar legislation passed the House of Representatives in 2010 and the Senate in 2011 though it has never become law.
如果国会通过并经巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)总统签署成为法律，新的立法将允许美国各行各业游说华盛顿，对达到一系列汇率操纵门槛的国家的输美产品开征反补贴税。类似的立法曾在2010年得到众议院通过，2011年得到参议院通过，尽管从未成为法律。
However, Mr Levin, who has spent decades fighting on behalf of the US auto industry against alleged currency manipulation by countries such as Japan, said the proposed measures would apply only to direct intervention in currency markets by governments.
不过，几十年来一直代表美国汽车业对抗日本等涉嫌操纵汇率的国家的莱文表示，拟议中的措施将仅针对政府直接干预汇市的行为。
They would explicitly not apply to any currency swings linked to central banks’ decisions on monetary policy, raising the question of just how relevant the proposed legislation would be.
它们将明确不适用于与央行货币政策决定关联的任何汇率波动，这就带出一个问题：拟议中的立法究竟与现实有多大的相关性？
The recent surge in the dollar and slumps in currencies such as the euro and the yen have been attributed largely to the introduction of unorthodox monetary measures by central banks. The US faced its own accusations of feeding a “currency war” in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis as a result of the quantitative easing programme.
近期美元大幅上涨，而欧元和日元走低，基本上都被归因于相关央行推出非正统的货币政策。2008年全球金融危机过后，美国自己曾面临引发“汇率战争”的指责，原因就是美国实行的量化宽松政策。
The recent moves by some central banks, aimed largely at stimulating domestic growth, have been explicitly cheered by some governments eager to see their currencies weaken in order to benefit exporters. Italy’s prime minister, Matteo Renzi, said last month that he dreamt of “parity” between the US dollar and the euro and the benefits it would provide to Italian exporters.
一些央行近期的举措主要是为了刺激国内经济增长，但这些举措也受到一些急于看到本币走低（从而造福出口商）的政府的明确欢呼。意大利总理马泰奥•伦齐(Matteo Renzi)上月表示，他梦想着美元兑欧元汇率达到1:1、为意大利出口企业带来实际好处的那一天。
Fred Bergsten, the former head of the Peterson Institute think-tank, said the proposed US legislation would probably not apply to any countries today.
智库彼得森国际经济研究所(Peterson Institute for International Economics)前负责人弗雷德•伯格斯滕(Fred Bergsten)表示，从当今的情况看，拟议中的美国立法很可能对一个国家也不适用。