【经济学人】川普就只是个商人丨2017.02.04丨总第813期

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MEXICO sells America more goods than America sells Mexico, and it enrages President Donald Trump. In 2015 the difference was $58 billion (0.3% of GDP). That is enough, thinks Mr Trump, to justify rewriting the North American Free-Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which allows goods to flow across the Rio Grande free of tariffs. Yet the trade deficit masks bigger figures: America sends almost $240bn in goods to Mexico every year. Were NAFTA to disappear in a renegotiation-gone-wrong, many Americans would pay a price—and not just as consumers faced with dearer avocados. Which American producers would suffer?

墨西哥出售给美国的产品比美国卖给墨西哥的多，这一点让特朗普总统大为恼火。2015年这一差值为580亿美元（占美国GDP的0.3%），这个数据在特朗普看来，已足以证明修改北美自由贸易协定（NAFTA）的合理性，该协定对穿越格兰德河的货物实行零关税。不过贸易逆差背后隐藏着更大的数字：美国每年销往墨西哥的货物价值大概为2400亿美元。假如北美自由贸易协定再次谈判出现问题而失效，很多美国人将为此付出代价——这不仅仅是消费者要承受更贵的牛油果（译者注：墨西哥拥有着全球最大的牛油果生产量）那么简单。那么作为美国厂商，谁将首当其冲呢？

Suppose, optimistically, that each side followed World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules. Then, tariffs would revert to so-called “most favoured nation” rates. (That might sound vaguely friendly, but it simply means neither side can offer a different deal from what it gives to any other WTO member.) By matching these tariffs to trade flows for about 5,000 goods, The Economist has estimated which states’ exporters would be worst-affected by the levies.

乐观的设想是，如果双边均遵守世贸协定，那么关税将恢复成所谓的最惠国税率（听起来可能有种含蓄的亲切感，但简单来说就是任何一方都不能提供给对方不同于其他WTO成员的待遇），通过将关税与大约5000种产品想对应，经济学人杂志对哪个州的出口商将受到征税的最严重影响进行了估算。

Farm states face the highest charges. Whacking tariffs on malt, potatoes and dairy products would cause Idaho’s exports to Mexico to incur an average levy of nearly 15%. Iowa and Nebraska would pay on average 12.5% for the privilege of sending goods over Mr Trump’s wall. Some products would be particularly badly hit. In 2015 Iowa’s farmers shipped $132m of high-fructose corn syrup to Mexico. Without NAFTA, Mexico would slap a tooth-aching 100% tariff on the stuff.

农业州面临着最高的费用，麦芽、马铃薯及乳制品高昂的关税将使爱达荷州对墨西哥的出口产品的平均税率高达15%，爱荷华州及内布拉斯加州也将支付平均12.5%的税才有权穿越“特朗普墙”。部分产品将尤其受到重创。2015年爱荷华州的农民运送了价值13200万美元的高果糖玉米糖浆到墨西哥。如果没有北美自由贸易协定，墨西哥将对此征收100%的关税。

Little wonder that the farm lobby tends vocally to support free trade. Yet farm states are lucky to have plenty of customers elsewhere. Idaho’s exports to Mexico are worth less than half a percent of its GDP. Other state economies are more tangled up with Mexico’s. These places should worry about NAFTA’s fate despite facing low average tariffs (see chart).

农业团体发声支援自由贸易不足为奇，但幸运的是农业州在别处也有大量的消费者，爱达荷州对墨西哥的出口不到其GDP的0.5%，其他州的经济却和墨西哥紧密相关。尽管平均关税不高，但这些州更应该担忧北美自由贸易协定的命运。

Among this group, Texas stands out. It faces an average tariff of only 3%, but its exports to Mexico are worth nearly 6% of its GDP (compared with 1.3% nationally). As in Iowa, farmers would suffer. Texan cuts of Gallus domesticus—otherwise known as chicken—would incur the largest tariff bill, $174m, of any single product category in the country. In total, as a percentage of GDP, Texas would pay more than any other state. Michigan also fits this category. Its exports of cars and parts—many of which end up back in America—would attract tariffs averaging only about 5%. But with such shipments totalling $4.1bn, the bill would be painfully large.

在这个组合里，德克萨斯州首当其冲，尽管其平均关税仅有3%，但对墨西哥出口占其GDP接近6%（全美为1.3%）。 （期待您的翻译，明天会有针对这句话的长难句解析哟~） 支出所占的GDP比例比其他州都要多。密歇根州同样属于这一范畴，其汽车及零部件出口将被征收平均大约5%的关税，但如此大的运输量将使关税支出达到42亿美元，这是让人难以承受的高昂费用。

All this gives Mexico some leverage. But Mr Trump has a stronger hand, because Mexican firms depend more on American consumers than vice versa. Part of the problem may be that rural America is already in the bag for the Republicans. Of the 25 states which would pay most in tariffs, as a percentage of their GDP, only four voted for Hillary Clinton in November.

这给墨西哥带来了一些优势，不过特朗普更为强势，因为相较美国企业来说，墨西哥企业更为依赖美国消费者。问题在于，美国农业州已经是共和党的囊中之物，即将承担关税占GDP比例最高的的25个州，在11月仅有4个州对希拉里克林顿投了赞成票。

Mr Trump may not feel any need to obey WTO rules. The White House’s latest trade spat is with Germany, a country already paying WTO tariffs (because no trade deal exists with the European Union). Peter Navarro, Mr Trump’s chief trade adviser, told the Financial Times on January 31st that the “grossly undervalued” euro has allowed Germany to “exploit” America. The White House has also recently hinted that it will adopt a congressional plan to “border-adjust” the corporate tax, which probably breaches WTO rules. If Mexico retaliated with rule breaking of its own, the costs to American producers would be greater—and harder to predict.

特朗普并无意遵守WTO规则，白宫最近指责了德国的贸易政策，尽管德国已经支付了WTO规定的关税。特朗普的首席贸易顾问Peter Navarro在1月31日告诉金融时报，价值被极度低估的欧元导致德国“剥削”美国。白宫近期已经暗示将采取一项国会计划对企业税进行“边境调整”，这可能将违背WTO规定。如果墨西哥也违背其原则来进行报复，美国生产者为此付出的代价将更为巨大，同时也更难以预测。

翻译 ▍ Poppin'Z