特朗普应该知道贸易战是为输家准备的 [美国媒体]

Trump should know trade wars are for losers 

特朗普应该知道贸易战是为输家准备的

By Stephen. S. Roach  作者：斯蒂芬·S·罗奇

Punitive tariffs ignore the root causes of U.S. trade deficit — low savings 

惩罚性关税忽视了美国贸易赤字的根源ーー低储蓄



LG Electronics has already raised prices for its washing machines in response to new tariffs imposed by the Trump administration.

图：为了应对特朗普政府征收的新关税，LG电子已经提高了其洗衣机的价格。

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (Project Syndicate) — Protectionist from the start, President Donald Trump’s administration has now moved from rhetoric to action in its avowed campaign to defend U.S. workers from what Trump calls the “carnage” of “terrible trade deals.”

康涅狄格州，纽黑文--唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)总统的政府从一开始就采取了保护主义者的姿态，从言辞转向行动，公开宣称要保护美国工人免受特朗普所谓的“可怕贸易协议”的“屠杀”。

Unfortunately, this approach is backward-looking at best. At worst, it could very well spark retaliatory measures that will only exacerbate the plight of beleaguered middle-class American consumers. This is exactly how trade wars begin.

不幸的是，这种方法充其量只能向后看。在最坏的情况下，这很可能引发报复性措施，只会加剧陷入困境的美国中产阶级消费者的困境，贸易战就是这样开始的。

Going after China, or any other country, without addressing the root cause of low saving is like squeezing one end of a water balloon: the water simply sloshes to the other end.
China is clearly the target. The Jan. 23 imposition of so-called safeguard tariffs on imports of solar panels and washing machines under Section 201 of the Trade Act of 1974 is directed mainly at China and South Korea. Significantly, the move could be the opening salvo in a series of measures.

中国显然就是靶子。1月23日，根据1974年“贸易法”第二百零一条，对进口太阳能电池板和洗衣机征收所谓的保障关税，主要针对的就是中国和韩国。值得注意的是，这一举措可能是一系列措施的开端。

Last August, the U.S. Trade Representative launched Section 301 investigations against China in three broad areas: intellectual property rights, innovation, and technology development. This is likely to lead to follow-up sanctions. Moreover, a so-called Section 232 investigation into the national security threat posed by unfair steel imports also takes dead aim at China as the world’s largest steel producer.

去年8月，美国贸易代表对中国进行了301项调查，内容包括知识产权、创新和技术发展等三个领域。这很可能会导致后续的制裁。此外，对从中国进口不公平钢材造成的国家安全威胁进行调查的所谓“232条款”，也把矛头对准了作为全球最大钢铁生产国的中国。

These actions hardly come as a surprise for a president who promised in his inaugural address a year ago to “protect [America’s] borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies, and destroying our jobs.” But that’s precisely the problem. Notwithstanding the Trump administration’sof America First, the U.S. could well find itself on the losing side of a trade war.

对于一位在一年前的就职演说中承诺“保护(美国)边境免受其他国家制造我们的产品、窃取我们的公司和破坏我们的工作岗位的蹂躏”的总统来说，这些行动并不令人惊讶，但这正是问题所在。尽管特朗普政府大声呼吁“美国优先”，但美国很可能会发现自己在贸易战中处于败北的一方。
（ 译注：cri de coeur 意为大声呼叫，强烈抗议）

For starters, tariffs on solar panels and washing machines are hopelessly out of step with transformative shifts in the global supply chains of both industries. Solar-panel production has long been moving from China to places like Malaysia, South Korea, and Vietnam, which now collectively account for about two-thirds of America’s total solar imports.

首先，太阳能电池板和洗衣机的关税与这两个行业全球供应链的变革不同步。太阳能电池板的生产长期以来一直从中国转移到马来西亚、韩国和越南等地，这些地区目前占美国太阳能进口总量的三分之二左右。

And Samsung, a leading foreign supplier of washing machines, has recently opened a new appliance factory in South Carolina.

而三星，是一家领先的国外洗衣机供应商，最近在南卡罗来纳州开设了一家新的家电工厂。

Moreover, the Trump administration’s narrow fixation on an outsize bilateral trade imbalance with China continues to miss the far broader macroeconomic forces that have spawned a U.S. multilateral trade deficit with 101 countries. Lacking in domestic saving and wanting to consume and grow, America must import surplus saving from abroad and run massive current-account and trade deficits to attract the foreign capital.

此外，特朗普政府对与中国之间规模巨大的双边贸易失衡的狭隘关注，继续忽视了导致美国与101个国家多边贸易逆差的更广泛的宏观经济力量。缺乏国内储蓄，想要消费和增长，必须从国外进口盈余储蓄，并保持巨额往来帐户（current-account ）和贸易赤字，以吸引外国资本。

Consequently, going after China, or any other country, without addressing the root cause of low saving is like squeezing one end of a water balloon: the water simply sloshes to the other end.

因此，在没有解决低储蓄这个根源的情况下，追击中国或任何其他国家，就像挤压一个水球的一端：水只是向另一端倾斜。

With U.S. budget deficits likely to widen by at least $1 trillion over the next 10 years, owing to the recent tax cuts, pressures on domestic saving will only intensify. In this context, protectionist policies pose a serious threat to America’s already-daunting external funding requirements — putting pressure on U.S. interest rates, the dollar’s exchange rate, or both.

由于最近的减税措施，美国未来10年的预算赤字可能至少会增加一万亿美元，对国内储蓄的压力只会加剧。在这种情况下，保护主义政策对美国本已令人生畏的外部资金需求构成严重威胁，给美国利率、美元汇率或两者都带来压力。

In addition, America’s trading partners can be expected to respond in kind, putting export-led U.S. economic growth at serious risk. For example, retaliatory tariffs by China — the third-largest and fastest-growing U.S. export market — could put a real crimp in America’s leading exports to the country: soybeans, aircraft, a broad array of machinery, and motor vehicles parts.

此外，预计美国的贸易伙伴也会做出同样的回应，这将使以出口带动的美国经济增长面临严重风险。举例来说，中国是美国第三大、增长最快的出口市场，其报复性关税可能会对美国的主要出口商品比如：大豆、飞机、各种机械和汽车零部件造成严重打击。

And, of course, China could always curtail its purchases of U.S. Treasuries, with serious consequences for financial asset prices.

当然，中国也可以随时限制购买美国国债，这将对金融资产价格造成严重影响。

Finally, one must consider the price adjustments that are likely to arise from the inertia of existing trade flows. Competitive pressures from low-cost foreign production have driven down the average cost of solar installation in the U.S. by 70% since 2010. The new tariffs will boost the price of foreign-made solar panels — the functional equivalent of a tax hike on energy consumers and a setback for efforts to boost reliance on non-carbon fuels.

最后，必须考虑到现有贸易流动的惯性可能引起的价格调整。自2010以来，来自低成本外国生产商品的竞争压力已经将美国太阳能安装的平均成本降低了70%，新的关税将推高外国制造的太阳能电池板的价格---这相当于对能源消费者增税，也是提高对非碳燃料依赖的努力的一次挫折。

A similar response can be expected from producers of imported washing machines; LG Electronics, a leading foreign supplier, has just announced a price increase of $50 per unit in response to the imposition of U.S. tariffs. American consumers are already on the losing end in the Trump administration’s first skirmishes.

预计进口洗衣机生产商也会有类似反应；作为外国领先供应商的LG电子公司刚刚宣布，针对美国征收的关税，其产品每台售价将提高50美元。在特朗普政府的第一次小规模冲突中，美国消费者已经处于失败的边缘。

Contrary to Trump’s tough talk, there is no winning strategy in a trade war.

与特朗普的强硬言论相反，贸易战中是不存在制胜战略的。

That doesn’t mean U.S. policy makers should shy away from addressing unfair trading practices. The dispute-resolution mechanism of the World Trade Organization was designed with precisely that aim in mind, and it has worked quite effectively to America’s advantage over the years. Since the WTO’s inception in 1995, the U.S. has filed 123 of the 537 disputes that have been brought before the body — including 21 lodged against China. While WTO adjudication takes time and effort, more often than not the rulings have favored the U.S.

这并不意味着美国政策制定者应该回避处理不公平的贸易行为。世界贸易组织的争端解决机制正是本着这个目标设计的，多年来，它对美国的利益发挥了相当有效的作用。自1995世贸组织成立以来，自1995年世贸组织成立以来，美国已经提交了537起争议中的123起，其中21起针对中国。虽然世贸组织的裁决需要时间和努力，但通常情况下，裁决往往有利于美国。

As a nation of laws, the U.S. can hardly afford to operate outside the scope of a rules-based global trading system. If anything, that underscores the tragedy of the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would have provided a new and powerful framework to address concerns over Chinese trading practices.

作为一个法治国家，美国很难在一个以规则为基础的全球贸易体系之外运作。如果说有什么不同的话，那就突显出特朗普政府退出跨太平洋伙伴关系(Trans-Pacific Partnership)的悲剧，这将为解决人们对中国贸易做法的担忧提供一个新的、强有力的框架。

At the same time, the U.S. has every right to insist on fair access for its multinational corporations to operate in foreign markets; over the years, more than 3,000 bilateral investment treaties have been signed around the world to guarantee such equitable treatment.

与此同时，美国完全有权坚持其跨国公司在外国市场上的公平经营；多年来，世界各地已签署了3000多项双边投资条约，以保证这种公平待遇。

The lack of such a treaty between the U.S. and China is a glaring exception, with the unfortunate effect of limiting of U.S. companies’ opportunities to participate in the rapid expansion of China’s domestic consumer market. With trade tensions now mounting, hopes of a breakthrough on a U.S.-China investment treaty have been all but dashed.

中美之间缺乏这样一项条约是一个明显的例外，其不幸的结果是限制了美国公司参与中国国内消费市场快速扩张的机会。随着贸易紧张局势的加剧，在美中投资条约上取得突破的希望几乎破灭了。

Trade wars are for losers. Perhaps that is the ultimate irony for a president who promised America it would start “winning” again. Sen. Reed Smoot and Rep. Willis Hawley made the same empty promise in 1930, leading to protectionist tariffs that exacerbated the Great Depression and destabilized the international order. Sadly, one of the most painful lessons of modern history has been all but forgotten. 

贸易战是为输家准备的。这也许是对一个承诺让美国将再次伟大的总统的终极讽刺。1930，参议员里德·斯穆特和众议员威利斯·霍利做出了同样空洞的承诺，导致保护主义的关税，加剧了大萧条，破坏了国际秩序。可悲的是，现代历史上最痛苦的教训之一几乎被遗忘了。


Swing Trader
15 hours ago
Trump's strong dollar policy and trying to get foreign trade in balance, a surplus in our favor would be amazing scares the hell out of the multinationals.  They've been exploiting cheap overseas labor sources to the detriment of many smaller domestic companies.  They were playing an easy street low risk game of making profits and fast growth that smaller companies can't easily access.  Now they are freaking out and will bring out their minions from the left to claim that a trade war will be bad for us, because it raises prices, which it will.  But what it really means is these companies with overseas operations will lose a lot of advantage over domestic.  For example shipping goods from China to the US by freighter and plane isn't exactly cheap.  And there is a reason for the phrase "slow boat it", and it isn't helpful to business.

特朗普的强势美元政策，试图让对外贸易保持平衡，我们对顺差的顺差令人吃惊，这让跨国公司感到害怕。他们一直在利用廉价的海外劳动力资源，损害了许多较小的国内企业。
他们玩的是一种简单的低风险游戏，即盈利和快速增长，而小公司无法轻易获得。现在他们都吓坏了，他们会把他们的左派成员从左翼中拉出来，声称一场贸易战会对我们不利，因为它会抬高价格。但它真正的意思是，这些拥有海外业务的公司将会在国内失去很多优势。例如，用货船和飞机将货物从中国运往美国并不便宜。“慢船”的说法是有原因的，但这对商业没有帮助。

We're already in a trade war.  It's called business, and it's always a war.  Competitors are not friendly.  One of the chief causes of us losing the trade war is our corporate income tax rate is too high and everyone of our trader partners replaced tariffs with VAT when they switched to so called free trade policies.

我们已经陷入了一场贸易战，这叫生意，而且总是一场战争，竞争对手并不友好。美国输掉贸易战的主要原因之一是，我们的企业所得税税率太高，而我们的贸易伙伴在转向所谓的自由贸易政策时，都用增值税取代了关税。

This means the US imports $3Trillion in goods and services while collecting about 1% in duties in tariffs.  Meanwhile the rest of the world puts a 20-30% VAT tax on the $2.3T we export.  Changing the tax code, won't fix everything but at least we'd have the consolation prize of $600-$900B in federal taxes if we matched the globe.  But that kind of price increase will definitely have a dramatic affect on keeping the sales inside our borders.

这意味着，美国进口商品和服务的金额为3万亿美元，同时只征收约1%的关税。与此同时，世界其他国家对我们出口的2.3万亿美元征收20至30%的增值税。修改税法并不能解决所有问题，但至少如果我们与全球相匹配，我们将获得6000亿美元至9000亿美元的联邦税收的安慰奖。但是，这种价格上涨肯定会对我们国内的销售产生巨大的影响。

Free trade is great, we just need to have the same rules apply to businesses operating inside our borders as those operating outside it and still exploiting our economy.

自由贸易是伟大的，我们只需要有同样的规则适用于在我国境内经营的企业，就像那些在境外经营的企业一样，它们仍然在剥削我们的经济。

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David Beech
18 hours ago
This statement shows the author is out of step with reality.
"The dispute-resolution mechanism of the World Trade Organization was designed with precisely that aim in mind, and it has worked quite effectively to America’s advantage over the years"
1.  WTO complaints take years to finally reach resolution  and damages must be shown.  By then, companies are out of business, plants closed, and workers have lost their jobs.
2.  Seeing imports bounce from country to country isn't new.  When a tariff is implanted against - say China.  They export to another country - like Mexico or Canada with no tariff.  Goods are manufactured there and imported to US to avoid tariff.

这一说法表明作者是与现实脱节的。
世界贸易组织的争端解决机制正是本着这一目标设计的，多年来它对美国的利益相当有效。

1.世贸组织的申诉需要数年才能最终得到解决，损害赔偿必须被证明。到那时，公司倒闭了，工厂倒闭了，工人们也失业了。

2.进口从一个国家反弹到另一个国家并不是什么新鲜事。当对中国征收关税时。他们出口到另一个国家，如墨西哥或加拿大，没有关税。货物在那里制造，然后进口到美国，以避免关税。

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Anthony Briglia
19 hours ago
When other countries are taxing American products unfairly it would be stupidity for us not to retaliate to make free trade also be FAIR TRADE. 

当其他国家对美国产品征收不公平的关税时，我们不采取报复措施，使这种自由贸易成为公平贸易也是愚蠢的。

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Guillermo Mairena
20 hours ago
I guess Comrade Trumpsky really showed LG! I just read in Reuters that LG has frozen the construction of the washer factory they are building in Tennessee. Sad, they were going to employ 600 people.

我想川普斯基同志是真的给LG脸色看了！我刚刚在路透社上看到LG已经冻结了他们在田纳西州的洗衣机工厂的建造，可悲的是，他们原本打算雇佣600人。

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S W
2 days ago
And, of course, China could always curtail its purchases of U.S. Treasuries, with serious consequences for financial asset prices.
However, it will hurt China more than the US. Imagine if China's can't export to the US because the US economy is in ruin.

中国可能会一直缩减其购买美国国债的规模，这会给金融资产价格带来严重后果，这是当然的。
然而，对中国的伤害将大于美国。想象一下，如果中国不能向美国出口，因为美国经济正处于崩溃之中。

Swing Trader
16 hours ago
@S W China has one reason and one reason only to buy our Treasuries.  We run a trade deficit with them, but using the US dollar inside China is illegal, meaning nobody can even hold them in banks.  So at the end China has excess dollars, so they convert them to treasuries to gain interest, and to also not flood the global financial exchanges with dollars, weakening it and making us less able to buy their goods.  It is a smoke and mirrors game.  So yes they manipulate the yuan this way, so we don't shake off the leach that they are.
China banks have accounts in foreign currencies.
I have 1 in USD for decades.

@S W  对中国来说，有一个原因，一个只能购买我们美国国债的原因：我们与他们有贸易逆差，但在中国境内使用美元是非法的，，这意味着没有人能在银行里持有这些美元。因此，中国最终拥有过剩的美元，他们只能将美元转换为美国国债，以获取利息，同时也不让美元涌入全球金融交易市场，削弱美元，使我们无法购买他们的商品——这是一场烟雾弥漫的游戏。所以，是的，他们以这种方式操纵人民币，这样我们就不能摆脱他们。

S W：
China banks have accounts in foreign currencies.
I have 1 in USD for decades.

中国的银行是有外币账户的，
我在里面存了1美元，已经几十年了。

Swing Trader
14 hours ago
@S W Are you a Chinese citizen?  Is the account really held in USD or does it just appear that way while the actual dollars are held by the central bank?  Can you withdraw the dollars and walk into the street and make a transaction using dollars?  If you look, you'll find that China requires all cross border trade by done in yuan, with the Chinese Central bank as the middle man normally, although it looks like that is opening a little.   Still a Chinese company can't hold dollars and buy from the US in dollars, they must both buy and sell in yuan.

@S W，你是中国公民吗？这个帐户是否真的以美元持有，还是在实际美元由中央银行持有？你能把钱取走，走到街上用美元做交易吗？如果你看一下，你会发现中国要求所有的跨境贸易都是以人民币进行的，而中国中央银行通常是中间的，尽管看起来有点开放，然而，一家中国公司不能持有美元，也不能以美元从美国购买货物，它们必须同时以人民币进行买卖。

S W
11 hours ago
You can have a USD account with a China Bank. Do not need to be a Chinese national.
Of course, you cannot officially use USD to buy things inside China. Just between private parties, perhaps.

你可以在中国银行有一个美元账户，不需要成为中国公民。
当然，你不能正式使用美元在中国境内购买东西，也许私人聚会之间可以。

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Joe Saba
22 hours ago
yes we UNDERSTAND completely how nafta and wto SOLD OUT 100's million WORKERS into globalized low wages - we already lost
so setting playing field back to normal from tilt is OK we say

是的，我们完全明白北美自由贸易协定和wto是如何把一亿工人以低工资卖给全球化的--我们已经输了。
因此，我们必须这么说：把倾斜状态中拉回到正常状态是可以的。

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Rusty Slade
2 days ago
I don't think this writer understands the competitive advantage a Chinese OEM supplier gets when they can pay 5 bucks and hour, offer no healthcare, offer no retirement benefits, they don't have to legally pay overtime, and they can dispose of their waste without regard to environmental standards common in America.

我认为这位作者不理解中国OEM供应商在支付5美元每小时的费用、不提供医疗保健、不提供退休福利、不需要合法支付加班费时所获得的竞争优势，而且他们可以不考虑美国的环境标准随意处理他们的废料。

On top of that, they aren't legally bound by FED OSHA to provide a safe working environment, they are not concerned with living up to iso 900x standards, and they don't have to worry about individual lawsuits from employees.

最重要的是，他们并没有被美国职业安全与职业健康保险法律约束，以提供一个安全的工作环境，他们不关心达到 ISO900标准，也不需要担心员工的个人诉讼。

And Stephen, you would know this if you ever tried to run a business yourself.      So go ahead and play the political card because that's obviously all you know.

斯蒂芬 ( 注：本文作者叫 Stephen. S. Roach ） ，如果你想自己经营一家公司，你就会知道的。所以继续打政治牌吧，因为显然你就只知道这些。