美國政策制定者的愚蠢貿易觀

How are trade partners to respond when US policymakers talk nonsense? That is the situation in which Europeans, Japanese and South Koreans now find themselves. The words of Wilbur Ross, US commerce secretary, and the man who Donald Trump trusts most on trade policy, show one can be a billionaire and yet not understand how the economy works, just as one can be an athlete and not understand physiology.

當美國政策制定者胡說八道時，其貿易伙伴該如何應對？這正是歐洲人、日本人和韓國人如今面臨的處境。美國商務部長威爾伯?羅斯(Wilbur Ross)是唐納德?特朗普(Donald Trump)在貿易政策上最信任的人，他的言論表明，一個不懂得經濟如何運行的人也可以成爲億萬富翁，正如一個不懂生理學人可以成爲運動員。

Objecting to warnings of protectionism from Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Mr Ross told the Financial Times that “we are the least protectionist of the major areas. We are far less protectionist than Europe. We are far less protectionist than Japan. We are far less protectionist than China.”

在反駁國際貨幣基金組織(IMF)總裁克里斯蒂娜?拉加德(Christine Lagarde)關於貿易保護主義的警告時，羅斯對英國《金融時報》表示：“我們是保護主義程度最輕的主要地區。我們遠沒有歐洲的保護主義那麼嚴重。我們遠沒有日本的保護主義那麼嚴重。我們遠沒有中國的保護主義那麼嚴重。”

He added: “We also have trade deficits with all three of those places. So they talk free trade. But in fact what they practice is protectionism. And every time we do anything to defend ourselves, even against the puny obligations that they have, they call that protectionism. It’s rubbish.”

他還稱：“我們還對所有這三個地區都有貿易逆差。所以他們在空談自由貿易。但是事實上他們做的是保護主義那一套。而每次我們採取自衛行動，哪怕是針對他們應該承擔的微小義務，他們都會稱之爲保護主義。那是胡扯。”

It is what Mr Ross says that is rubbish. A trade deficit is not proof that a country is open to trade. It is proof that it is spending more than its income or investing more than it saves. This is not just a theoretical point. Solid evidence supports it.

羅斯所說的纔是胡扯。貿易逆差並非一國貿易開放的證據。它只能證明一國的支出多過收入，或者投資多過儲蓄。這不僅僅是一個理論觀點。有確鑿的證據支持這一點。

The Heritage Foundation, no less, provides an annual Index of Economic Freedom, which includes “trade freedom”. The think-tank, which prides itself on commanding influence in the Trump administration, derives the latter from data on trade-weighted tariffs and non-tariff barriers. The US, it shows, has far from the most liberal trade policies.

美國傳統基金會(Heritage Foundation)每年都發布包括“貿易自由度”在內的經濟自由度指數(Index of Economic Freedom)。這家以可對特朗普政府施加影響爲傲的智庫，利用關於貿易加權關稅和非關稅壁壘的數據得出貿易自由度。該指標顯示，美國貿易政策遠非最自由的。

These measures of trade freedom can be combined with data on current account balances, adjusted for the size of economies. (On this basis, the US deficit was 98th biggest out of 177 countries.) Just as theory predicts, no significant relationship exists between trade freedom and deficits. To the extent there is one, it is in the opposite direction: there is a weak tendency for liberal traders to run larger surpluses.

這些衡量貿易自由度的指標可以結合經常賬戶餘額數據，並根據經濟體的規模調整。（在此基礎上，美國的逆差規模在177個國家中排第98位。）就像有學說預言的那樣，貿易自由度與逆差之間並不存在顯著關聯。如果有的話，也是一種反向關係：自由貿易國有產生更大順差的弱趨勢。

The idea that protection will reduce trade deficits does make intuitive sense. It is wrong, however, because the economy does not consist of isolated markEts: everything is related to everything else. Taxes on imports are also taxes on exports. If one imposes protection against imports, one pulls resources out of production for export. To put the point in other words, exports are just a way of supplying imports. If a country imports less, because of protection, the incentive to produce exports will, other things being equal, also fall. The mechanism through which this is likely to happen, in the case of the US, will be a rise in the dollar, as the demand for imports falls. Thus, protection reduces ratios of trade to gross domestic product (making economies more closed), not trade deficits.

貿易保護將減少貿易逆差的確聽起來言之有理。然而，這種觀點是錯誤的，因爲經濟並非由孤立的市場構成：一切都是相互關聯的。對進口徵稅也是對出口徵稅。如果一國抵制進口，則會導致用於生產出口商品的資源減少。換句話說，出口只是供應進口的一種方式。如果一國因貿易保護減少進口，生產出口商品的動力（在其他條件不變的情況下）也將下降。就美國而言，隨着對進口的需求下降，可能造成這種情況發生的機制將是美元走強。因此，貿易保護會降低貿易佔國內生產總值(GDP)的比重（使經濟更加封閉），而非減少貿易逆差。

Now compare the savings rates of high-income economies with their current account balances (again relative to GDP). Just as one would expect, differences in national savings rates are powerful predictors of current account balances. If we look at high-income countries alone, we find that the US is not exceptional in any way. It is a relatively low-saving country that, largely as a result, has persistently run a current account deficit.

現在，我們比較一下高收入經濟體的儲蓄與它們的經常賬戶餘額（還是相對於GDP）。正如人們所料，國民儲蓄的差異可以很好地用於預測經常賬戶餘額。如果只看高收入國家，我們會發現，美國一點也不例外。美國是一個儲蓄相對較低的國家，很大程度因爲這一點，美國才一直保持經常賬戶赤字。

This has allowed the US to invest more than it saves. If it wishes to reduce its external deficits, it must either lower investment (evidently, a bad idea) or raise savings. If it wishes to do the latter, the obvious start would be not to slash taxes, as planned, but raise them, instead.

這使得美國的投資多過本國儲蓄。如果美國希望降低外部赤字，它必須要麼減少投資（這顯然是個壞主意）要麼增加儲蓄。如果美國想增加儲蓄，第一步就是不要按原計劃那樣減稅，而是要增稅。

Mr Ross’s misunderstandings of the economics of trade are far from harmless follies. The administration’s fiscal policies seem sure to increase the US external deficit, for which foreigners will be blamed. Its trade policies will fail to reduce US trade deficits, for which foreigners will again be blamed. The US will propose the ludicrous objective of bilateral trade balancing in a world in which commerce itself is multilateral. This too will fail, for which foreigners will be also blamed. In all, the administration could demolish the open trading system simply because it is clueless.

羅斯對貿易經濟學的誤解，絕不是一些毫無害處的傻念頭。特朗普政府的財政政策看起來勢必會增加美國的外部赤字，外國人將爲此背鍋。而其貿易政策將不能減少美國的貿易逆差，外國人將再次背鍋。美國將提出可笑的目標，想在一個商業本身就多邊化的世界裏取得雙邊貿易平衡。這也會失敗，然後再次甩鍋到外國人頭上。總而言之，特朗普政府可能會僅僅因爲無知而廢除開放的貿易制度。

The trading system has been the basis of post-second world war prosperity. This period has in turn been the most prosperous for humanity in history. An excellent recent paper from the IMF, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization lays out both what is at stake and needs to be done to spread the gains from trade more widely.

該貿易制度是二次世界大戰後繁榮的基礎，這一時期也是迄今人類歷史上最繁榮的時期。IMF、世界銀行(World Bank)和世界貿易組織(WTO)最近發表了一篇精彩的文章，清晰地闡述了更廣泛地分配貿易的好處所要涉及的緊要問題以及需要做些什麼。

In particular, it demonstrates that creating a safety net for affected workers and communities, combined with policies to support adjustment to change, is effective. Yet that is precisely what the Republicans intend to weaken. Alas, that makes protection the only policy on offer to those adversely affected by economic changes, including imports.

這篇文章還特別論證了爲受影響的勞動者和羣體建立一張安全網，結合支持針對變革作出調整的政策，是有效的。但這正是共和黨人打算削弱的。唉，這讓保護主義成了對那些受經濟變化——包括進口——不利影響的人唯一能提供的政策。

What is frightening about the trade agenda of the administration is that it manages to be both irrelevant and damaging. A relevant agenda would focus on the imbalances in savings and investment across the world economy. A beneficial agenda would focus on combining the necessary adjustment to economic change, of which trade is a relatively small part, with widening shares in the gains and assistance with adjustment. It would also recognise that trade has been one of the engines of economic dynamism. What is most worrying about trade has been the slowdown in its growth. That, the World Bank suggests, may be one reason for the productivity slowdown.

特朗普政府貿易議程的可怕之處在於，它既不切中要害，又有破壞性。切中要害的議程會側重於整個世界經濟中儲蓄和投資的不平衡。有益的議程會側重於將針對經濟變化（貿易在其中只佔了相對小的一部分）的必要調整，與擴大好處分享並協助調整相結合。這樣的議程還會承認，貿易一直是經濟活力的引擎之一。貿易最令人擔憂之處一直是增長放緩。世界銀行認爲，這可能是生產率下滑的一個原因。

So how should trade partners respond to US demands? They need to accept the significance of macroeconomic imbalances. They need to make concessions that increase trade, without damaging the global economy. They need to argue the case for multilateral liberalisation. They need to do whatever they can to protect the principle of trade rules that bind both strong and the weak. Above all, they need to be patient. The US should not be governed forever by those who have so little understanding of what is at stake.

那麼美國的貿易伙伴應該如何迴應美國的要求呢？他們需要承認宏觀經濟失衡的顯著性。他們需要作出讓步以增加貿易，不去損害全球經濟。他們需要爲多邊自由化據理力爭。他們需要極盡所能地去保護能夠約束強弱雙方的貿易規則原則。最重要的是，他們需要有耐心。美國應該不會永遠掌控在那些對緊要問題如此缺乏瞭解的人的手中。