Paul Krugman 惡性愚蠢會毀掉世界經濟

惡性愚蠢會毀掉世界經濟嗎？

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/will-careless-stupidity-kill-the

特朗普的關稅政策是一場災難。他的政策製定過程更糟糕。

保羅·克魯格曼的頭像 保羅·克魯格曼 2025年4月3日
快速感謝我的讀者們。當我獨自創業時，我並不確定是否會有人跟隨。但我的訂閱者人數剛剛超過30萬。我會努力不辜負你們的支持。

美國創建了現代世界貿易體係。管理關稅的規則以及逐步降低關稅的談判程序源於羅斯福於1934年製定的《互惠貿易協定法》。在該體係下，國際貿易的增長有一些負麵影響，但總體而言，對美國和世界都非常有利。事實上，這是我們最偉大的政策成就之一。

昨天，唐納德·特朗普徹底摧毀了一切。以下是美國平均關稅稅率的最新變化：

來源：美國國際貿易委員會和耶魯大學預算實驗室

特朗普宣布的關稅幾乎超出了所有人的預期。這對經濟的衝擊遠超1930年臭名昭著的斯姆特-霍利關稅法案，尤其要記住，如今國際貿易的重要性大約是當時的三倍。

然而，關稅的規模並非玫瑰園聲明唯一令人震驚之處。可以說，我們了解到特朗普團隊是如何製定這些關稅稅率的——整件事純粹是惡意的愚蠢——更為糟糕。

你或許會傾向於將對政策製定過程的抱怨斥為精英主義的勢利。但可信度是政策製定的關鍵要素。如果企業不知道下一步會發生什麽，就無法製定計劃。如果外國政府不期望我們做出理性回應，他們就不會製定對美國有利的政策。

那麽，我們對特朗普主義者是如何製定關稅計劃的了解多少呢？特朗普聲稱，對不同國家征收的關稅反映了這些國家的政策，但詹姆斯·蘇洛維茨基很快指出，對每個國家征收的關稅似乎是根據美國對該國貿易逆差粗略計算得出的。特朗普政府否認了這一點，與此同時，美國貿易代表辦公室發布了一份說明，證實了蘇洛維茨基的猜測。他們的解釋如下：

來源：美國貿易代表辦公室

請忽略希臘字母，它們相互抵消。這意味著，一個國家的保護主義假定水平等於其對美貿易順差除以其對美出口額。

特朗普還設定了對所有國家的最低關稅為10%，這意味著除其他外，還要對無人居住的島嶼征收關稅。

這種方法錯得離譜，讓人不知從何說起。但有一點很容易指出：特朗普的計算隻考慮了貨物貿易，而忽略了服務貿易。這是一個重大的遺漏。值得注意的是，如果隻看貨物貿易，歐盟對我們有相當大的順差——但這很大程度上被歐盟在服務貿易方麵的逆差所抵消：

來源：歐盟委員會

所以，如果特朗普的團隊把所有與歐盟的貿易，而不僅僅是實物商品貿易，都納入他們的公式，他們就會得出歐洲幾乎根本不是貿易保護主義者的結論。

這些東西是從哪裏冒出來的？也許有一天我們會知道全部真相，但在我看來，這就像是一個初級職員在隻提前幾個小時通知的情況下草草拚湊起來的。尤其是那份美國貿易代表辦公室的報告，讀起來就像是一個沒讀過書、想在考試中胡扯的學生寫的。

但情況可能比這更糟。如果你讓ChatGPT和其他人工智能模型來製定關稅政策，你得到的顯然就是特朗普的公式：

在特朗普宣布這一消息後，我立即發表了一篇文章，推測埃隆·馬斯克的鄧寧-克魯格效應可能是造成這些關稅數字的原因。現在看來，這完全有可能。

是誰這樣製定政策的？關鍵在於，特朗普並非真心實意地想要實現經濟目標。這一切應該被視為一種霸道的炫耀，旨在震懾民眾，讓他們卑躬屈膝，而不是通常意義上的政策。

再說一次，我並非故作姿態。當世界經濟的命運岌岌可危時，政策製定過程的惡性愚蠢無疑與政策本身同等重要。無論是商界人士還是外國政府，怎麽能相信一個如此行事的政府的任何言論呢？

接下來你就會告訴我，特朗普的人正在通過不安全的渠道策劃軍事行動，並無意中將這些計劃透露給了記者。哦，等等。

我倒是希望特朗普承認自己搞砸了，取消所有計劃，然後重新開始。但他不會，因為那樣會破壞他霸道的炫耀。無知的不負責任正是他所傳遞信息的一部分。

Will Malignant Stupidity Kill the World Economy?

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/will-careless-stupidity-kill-the

Trump’s tariffs are a disaster. His policy process is worse.

 

 PAUL KRUGMAN  APR 03, 2025

 

A quick thank you to my readers. When I struck out on my own, I wasn’t sure if anyone would follow. But I just passed 300K subscribers. I’ll try to be worthy of your support.

America created the modern world trading system. The rules governing tariffs and the negotiating process that brought those tariffs down over time grew out of the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act, devised by FDR in 1934. The growth in international trade under that system had some negative aspects but was on balance very good for America and the world. It was, in fact, one of our greatest policy achievements.

Yesterday Donald Trump burned it all down. Here’s what just happened to the average U.S. tariff rate:

Source: USITC and Yale Budget Lab

The tariffs Trump announced were higher than almost anyone expected. This is a much bigger shock to the economy than the infamous Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930, especially when you bear in mind that international trade is about three times as important now as it was then.

The size of the tariffs, however, wasn’t the only shocking thing about the Rose Garden announcement. Arguably what we learned about how the Trump team arrived at those tariff rates — the sheer malignant stupidity of the whole thing — was even worse.

You might be tempted to dismiss complaints about the policy process as elitist snobbery. But credibility is a crucial part of policymaking. Businesses can’t plan if they have no idea what to expect next. Foreign governments won’t make policies that help America if they don’t expect us to respond rationally.

So what do we know about how the Trumpists arrived at their tariff plan? Trump claimed that the tariff rates imposed on different countries reflected their policies, but James Surowiecki soon noted that the tariffs applied to each country appeared to be derived from a crude formula based on the U.S. trade deficit with that country. Trump officials denied this, while at the same time the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative released a note confirming Surowiecki’s guess. Here’s their explanation:

Source: USTR

Ignore the Greek letters, which cancel each other out. This says that the assumed level of a country’s protectionism is equal to its trade surplus with America divided by its exports to America.

Trump also set minimum tariffs of 10 percent on everyone, which means among other things imposing tariffs on uninhabited islands.

There’s so much wrong with this approach that it’s hard to know where to start. But one easy thing to point out is that the Trump calculation only considers trade in goods, while ignoring trade in services. This is a big omission. Notably, the European Union runs a substantial surplus with us if you only look at trade in goods — but this is largely offset by an EU deficit in services trade:

Source: European Commission

So if Trump’s people had plugged all trade with the EU, not just trade in physical goods, into their formula they would have concluded that Europe is hardly protectionist at all.

Where is this stuff coming from? One of these days we’ll probably get the full story, but it looks to me like something thrown together by a junior staffer with only a couple of hours’ notice. That USTR note, in particular, reads like something written by a student who hasn’t done the reading and is trying to bullshit their way through an exam.

But it may be even worse than that. The Trump formula is apparently what you get if you ask ChatGPT and other AI models to make tariff policy:

In my post immediately following the Trump announcement I speculated that Elon Musk’s Dunning-Kruger kids might be responsible for those tariff numbers. That now looks like a distinct possibility.

Who makes policy this way? The key point is that Trump isn’t really trying to accomplish economic goals. This should all be seen as a dominance display, intended to shock and awe people and make them grovel, rather than policy in the normal sense.

Again, I’m not being snobbish here. When the fate of the world economy is on the line, the malignant stupidity of the policy process is arguably as important as the policies themselves. How can anyone, whether they’re businesspeople or foreign governments, trust anything coming out of an administration that behaves like this?

Next thing you’ll be telling me that Trump’s people are planning military actions over insecure channels and accidentally sharing those plans with journalists. Oh, wait.

I’d like to imagine that Trump will admit that he messed up, cancel the whole thing, and start over. But he won’t, because that would spoil the dominance display. Ignorant irresponsibility is part of the message.