President Trump declared on Wednesday evening that his power as commander in chief is constrained only by his “own morality,” brushing aside international law and other checks on his ability to use military might to strike, invade or coerce nations around the world.

周三晚间，特朗普总统宣称，作为三军统帅，他的权力仅受“自己的道德”限制，全然无视国际法以及其他约束他对全球各国动用军事力量、实施入侵或胁迫行为的制衡机制。

Asked in a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times if there were any limits on his global powers, Mr. Trump said: “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”

在《纽约时报》的一场涉及诸多话题的访谈中，当被问及他的全球权力是否存在任何限制，特朗普表示：“有，只有一样东西——我自己的道德，我自己的判断。这是唯一能阻止我的东西。”

“I don’t need international law,” he added. “I’m not looking to hurt people.”

“我不需要国际法，”他还说。“我无意伤害他人。”

When pressed further about whether his administration needed to abide by international law, Mr. Trump said, “I do.” But he made clear he would be the arbiter when such constraints applied to the United States.

当被进一步追问其政府是否需要遵守国际法时，特朗普称：“我遵守。”但他明确表示，当此类约束适用于美国时，他将是最终的仲裁者。

“It depends what your definition of international law is,” he said.

“这取决于你对国际法的定义，”他说。

Mr. Trump’s assessment of his own freedom to use any instrument of military, economic or political power to cement American supremacy was the most blunt acknowledgment yet of his worldview. At its core is the concept that national strength, rather than laws, treaties and conventions, should be the deciding factor as powers collide.

特朗普对自身运用军事、经济或政治手段巩固美国霸权自由度的评估是他迄今最直接的价值观表白。其核心理念是，在大国博弈中，决定性因素应该是国家实力，而不是法律、条约和公约。

He did acknowledge some constraints at home, even as he has pursued a maximalist strategy of punishing institutions he dislikes, exacting retribution against political opponents and deploying the National Guard to cities over the objections of state and local officials.

他承认国内存在某些制约因素，尽管他推行了强硬策略：惩罚自己不喜欢的机构、报复政治对手、不顾州和地方官员的反对向城市部署国民警卫队。

He made clear that he uses his reputation for unpredictability and a willingness to resort quickly to military action, often in service of coercing other nations. During his interview with The Times, he took a lengthy call from President Gustavo Petro of Colombia, who was clearly concerned after repeated threats that Mr. Trump was thinking of an attack on the country similar to the one on Venezuela.

他明确表示，他利用自己行事难以预测的名声和迅速诉诸军事行动的意愿，通常是用来胁迫其他国家。在接受《纽约时报》采访期间，他接听了哥伦比亚总统佩特罗的长时间来电。此前特朗普多次威胁可能对哥伦比亚发动类似在委内瑞拉的袭击，佩特罗对此显然忧心忡忡。

“Well, we are in danger,” Mr. Petro said in an interview with The Times just before the call. “Because the threat is real. It was made by Trump.”

The call between the two leaders, the contents of which were off the record, was an example of coercive diplomacy in action. And it came just hours after Mr. Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio had extracted the United States from dozens of international organizations intended to foster multinational cooperation.

In his conversation with The Times, Mr. Trump sounded more emboldened than ever. He cited the success of his strike on Iran’s nuclear program — he keeps a model of the B-2 bombers used in the mission on his desk; the speed with which he decapitated the Venezuelan government last weekend; and his designs on Greenland, which is controlled by Denmark, a NATO ally.

在接受《纽约时报》采访时，特朗普显得比以往任何时候都更加大胆。他列举了打击伊朗核计划的成功——他的办公桌上摆放着执行该任务的B-2轰炸机模型、上周末迅速推翻委内瑞拉政府的行动，以及对北约盟国丹麦控制的格陵兰岛的图谋。

When asked what was his higher priority, obtaining Greenland or preserving NATO, Mr. Trump declined to answer directly, but acknowledged “it may be a choice.” He made clear that the trans-Atlantic alliance was essentially useless without the United States at its core.

当被问及获取格陵兰岛和维护北约哪个优先级更高时，特朗普拒绝直接回答，但承认“这可能要做选择”。他明确表示，若没有美国作为核心，这个跨大西洋联盟基本上毫无用处。

Even as he characterized the norms of the post-World War II order as unnecessary burdens on a superpower, Mr. Trump was dismissive of the idea that the leader of China, Xi Jinping, or President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia could use similar logic to the detriment of the United States. On topic after topic, he made clear that in his mind, U.S. power is the determining factor — and that previous presidents have been too cautious to make use of it for political supremacy or national profit.

尽管他将二战后国际秩序的规范描述为超级大国不必要的负担，但特朗普对中国领导人习近平或俄罗斯总统普京可能会用类似逻辑损害美国利益的观点不屑一顾。在一个又一个话题上，他明确表示，在他看来，美国的实力才是决定性因素——而过往的总统们过于谨慎，未能将其用于政治霸权或国家利益。

The president’s insistence that Greenland must become part of the United States was a prime example of his worldview. It was not enough to exercise the U.S. right, under a 1951 treaty, to reopen long-closed military bases on the huge landmass, which is a strategically important crossroads for U.S., European, Chinese and Russian naval operations.

总统坚持认为格陵兰岛必须成为美国的一部分，这是他世界观的典型例证。根据1951年的一项条约，美国有权在这片战略要地（美国、欧洲、中国和俄罗斯海军行动的交汇点）重新开放长期关闭的军事基地，但这对他来说还不够。

“Ownership is very important,” Mr. Trump said as he discussed, with a real estate mogul’s eye, the landmass of Greenland — three times the size of Texas but with a population of less than 60,000. He seemed to dismiss the value of having Greenland under the control of a close NATO ally.

“所有权非常重要，”特朗普以房地产大亨的眼光审视格陵兰岛时宣称。格陵兰岛面积是得克萨斯州的三倍，但人口不足6万。他似乎不屑于让格陵兰岛处于北约亲密盟友的控制之下。

When asked why he needed to possess the territory, he said: “Because that’s what I feel is psychologically needed for success. I think that ownership gives you a thing that you can’t do with, you’re talking about a lease or a treaty. Ownership gives you things and elements that you can’t get from just signing a document.”

当被问及为何需要拥有这片领土时，他说：“因为我认为这是心理层面上取得成功的必要条件。我认为，所有权能带来的东西是你无法通过租赁或条约获得的。所有权能给你带来只靠签署文件无法获得的实质要素。”

The conversation made clear that in Mr. Trump’s view, sovereignty and national borders are less important than the singular role the United States plays as the protector of the West.

这次访谈表明，在特朗普看来，主权和国家边界的重要性不及美国作为西方守护者所扮演的独特角色。

He argued that only he — and not two predecessors on whom he heaped scorn, Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Barack Obama — had proved capable of persuading NATO nations to spend 5 percent of the gross domestic product on defense. (About 1.5 percent of that is actually for domestic infrastructure — from power grids to cybersecurity — that can support defense. The target does not kick in until 2035, six years after Mr. Trump leaves office.)

他声称，事实证明，唯有他本人——而非他极尽嘲讽的前任拜登和奥巴马——有能力说服北约国家将国内生产总值的5%用于国防开支。（其中约1.5%实际用于支持国防的国内基础设施建设——从电网到网络安全。该目标到2035年才生效，即特朗普离任六年后。）

“I want them to shape up,” he said. “I think we’ll always get along with Europe, but I want them to shape up. I’m the one that got them to spend more on the, you know, more G.D.P. on NATO. But if you look at NATO, Russia I can tell you is not at all concerned with any other country but us.”

“我希望他们振作起来，”他说。“我认为我们会和欧洲永远和睦，但我希望他们振作起来。是我让他们在北约投入了更多的GDP。但如果你看看北约，我可以告诉你，俄罗斯眼里只有我们，根本不关心其他国家。”

The president added: “I’ve been very loyal to Europe. I’ve done a good job. If it weren’t for me, Russia would have all of Ukraine right now.”

总统还说：“我一直对欧洲非常忠诚。我做得很好。如果不是我，俄罗斯现在早就占领整个乌克兰了。”

He seemed unconcerned that the last major nuclear arms control agreement with Russia was set to expire in four weeks, leaving the world’s two largest nuclear powers free to expand their arsenals without limit, for the first time in half a century.

他似乎并不担心与俄罗斯的最后一项主要核军备控制协议将在四周后到期，这将使世界上两个最大的核大国半个世纪以来首次可以不受限制地扩充核武库。

“If it expires, it expires,” he said. “We’ll just do a better agreement,” he added, insisting that China, which has the fastest-growing arsenal in the world, should be incorporated in any future agreement.

“到期就到期吧，”他说。“我们会达成更好的协议。”他坚持认为，拥有世界上增长最快核武库的中国应被纳入所有未来协议之中。

“You probably want to get a couple of other players involved also,” Mr. Trump said.

“你可能还想让其他几方也加入进来，”特朗普说。

The president seemed equally sanguine about whether his decision to send Special Operations forces into Caracas to remove Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela would be exploited by China or Russia. In the days since the action in Venezuela, there have been arguments that the U.S. precedent would help justify a Chinese effort to take Taiwan, or Russia’s attempt to seize Ukraine, which Mr. Putin has described as a historical part of the Russian empire, dating back more than a dozen centuries.

对于派遣特种部队进入加拉加斯推翻委内瑞拉总统马杜罗的决定可能被中国或俄罗斯利用的观点，总统显得同样不以为然。委内瑞拉行动后的几天里，有人认为美国开创的先例可能会为中国试图夺取台湾或俄罗斯试图占领乌克兰（普京称十几个世纪以来，该国在历史上一直是俄罗斯帝国的一部分）提供借口。

Asked whether he had created a precedent that he may later regret, Mr. Trump argued that his view of the threat posed by Mr. Maduro’s Venezuela was quite different than Mr. Xi’s view of Taiwan.

当被问及他是否开创了一个日后可能后悔的先例时，特朗普辩称，他对马杜罗领导的委内瑞拉构成的威胁的看法与习近平对台湾的看法截然不同。

“This was a real threat,” he said of Venezuela. “You didn’t have people pouring into China,” he argued, repeating his oft-made claim that Mr. Maduro dumped gang members into the United States.

“这是一个真正的威胁，”他在谈到委内瑞拉时说。“你不会看到有人涌入中国，”他重复了自己经常提出的说法，称马杜罗向美国大量输送帮派成员。

Mr. Trump added: “You didn’t have drugs pouring into China. You didn’t have all of the bad things that we’ve had. You didn’t have the jails of Taiwan opened up and the people pouring into China,” or, he said later, criminals and others “pouring into Russia.”

特朗普还说：“你不会看到毒品涌入中国，不会看到我们所经历的所有坏事。你不会看到台湾的监狱被打开，人们涌入中国。”他稍后又说，犯罪分子等群体“涌入俄罗斯”的情况也不存在。

When a reporter noted that Mr. Xi regarded Taiwan as a separatist threat to China, Mr. Trump said: “That’s up to him, what he’s going to be doing. But, you know, I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that. I hope he doesn’t.”

当记者指出习近平将台湾视为对中国的分裂主义威胁时，特朗普说：“这取决于他想做什么。但你知道，我已经向他表示，如果他那样做，我会非常不高兴，我认为他不会那样做。我希望他不会。”

Then, asked whether Mr. Xi might seize on recent events to attack or choke off Taiwan, he suggested that the Chinese leader would not dare to take that step while Mr. Trump was in office. “He may do it after we have a different president, but I don’t think he’s going to do it with me as president,” he said.

随后，当被问及习近平是否可能利用最近的事件对台湾发动攻击或实施封锁时，他表示，这位中国领导人在特朗普执政期间不敢采取这一步骤。“等我们换了总统以后他可能会这么做，但我认为在我担任总统期间他不会，”他说。

On Thursday, in a rare assertion of congressional authority over the president’s war powers, the Senate agreed to debate a resolution aimed at curbing Mr. Trump’s use of military force in Venezuela. Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, said one factor that may have tipped the vote was the president’s comment during Wednesday’s interview that the United States might remain involved in Venezuela for years.

周四，参议院罕见地主张国会对总统战争权力的监管权，同意就一项旨在限制特朗普在委内瑞拉使用军事力量的决议进行辩论。肯塔基州共和党参议员兰德·保罗表示，促使投票结果倾向于进行辩论的一个因素是总统在周三采访中提及美国可能在委内瑞拉保持多年介入。

On the domestic front, Mr. Trump suggested that judges only have power to restrict his domestic policy agenda — from the deployment of the National Guard to the imposition of tariffs — “under certain circumstances.”

在国内事务方面，特朗普暗示，法官只有在“特定情况下”才有权力限制他的国内政策议程——从部署国民警卫队到征收关税都是如此。

But he was already considering workarounds. He raised the possibility that if his tariffs issued under emergency authorities were struck down by the Supreme Court, he could repackage them as licensing fees. And Mr. Trump, who said he was elected to restore law and order, reiterated that he was willing to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy the military inside the United States and federalize some National Guard units if he felt it was important to do so.

So far, he said, “I haven’t really felt the need to do it.”

他说，到目前为止，“我还没有真正觉得有必要这么做。”