“事情荒谬到，我写到这里差点昏过去……”

莱索托王国，一个位于南非高原的贫困山国，在特朗普政府实施的“对等关税”政策下被加征了高达50%的进口关税。

对于这个世界上最贫穷的国家之一，这是毁灭性的打击。有分析师悲观预测称，工厂会关闭，工人会失业，“整个纺织行业将会消亡”。该国近一半的出口额或将因此消失。

莱索托既非经济对手，也非战略威胁，只因太穷了买不起美国出口商品，造成对美贸易顺差，就被征收了接近最高上限的关税税率。

这个荒诞又悲哀的案例，被4月3日《大西洋月刊》的评论文章引为佐证，文章中直言不讳指出，这个案例说明美国当前的关税政策有多么荒唐，完全是特朗普毫无逻辑的个性的延伸。

该文作者德里克·汤普森（Derek Thompson）讽刺地点评道，要理解美国当前贸易政策，最合适的一句话是：“没人知道是怎么回事”（Nobody knows anything）。

The most fitting analysis for this moment, however, does not come from an economist or a financial researcher. It comes from the screenwriter William Goldman, who pithily captured his industry's lack of foresight with one of the most famous aphorisms in Hollywood history: "Nobody knows anything."

汤普森犀利地指出，特朗普的关税政策“与其说是经济理论，不如说是达达主义艺术（Dadaist）——用荒诞的方式质疑专业存在的必要性”。

各方对关税目标的解释自相矛盾：贸易顾问彼得·纳瓦罗（Peter Navarro）宣称这是“美国史上最大增税计划”，科技界亲特朗普人士帕尔默·拉奇（Palmer Luckey）声称其终极目标是“通过迫使各国在惩罚性关税面前取消现有贸易壁垒，最终实现完全自由贸易”，而经济顾问斯蒂芬·米兰（Stephen Miran）则将其视为“通过美元贬值和重振美国制造业就业，重新平衡美国与全球经济的关系”的宏伟计划。

然而，这三个目标——增加财政收入、恢复自由贸易和调整全球经济——本就是相互矛盾的。这进一步说明这些关税没有一个统一连贯的解释。

These three alleged goals — raising revenue, restoring free trade, and rejiggering the global economy — are incompatible with one another.

首先，增加财政收入与恢复自由贸易相互排斥：一项旨在自我消亡的征税政策不可能长期充实国库；其次，自由贸易主张与制造业复兴目标相背离：若想实现再工业化，就不可能继续依赖当初导致铁锈地带（美国东北部-五大湖附近萧条的工业区）衰落的全球贸易放任政策。自由贸易要么是需要捍卫的经济乐土，要么就是亟待摧毁的诅咒性政治秩序。

The first and second explanations are mutually exclusive: The state can't raise tax revenue in the long run with a levy that is designed to disappear. The second and third explanations are mutually exclusive too: You can't reindustrialize by doubling down on the global-trade free-for-all that supposedly immiserated the Rust Belt in the first place. Either global free trade is an economic Valhalla worth fighting for, or it's the cursed political order that we're trying desperately to destroy.

更荒诞的在于关税的计算方式：所谓“对等”关税，既非镜像复制他国关税水平，亦非平衡双边贸易流量，而是一套独特的算法。特朗普团队似乎是基于美国与某国的贸易逆差除以从该国进口的总额，再经过粗略调整，得出新关税。

The Trump team seems to have calculated each penalty by dividing the US trade deficit with a given country by how much the US imports from it and then doing a rough adjustment.

在这种计算方式下，无人居住的赫德岛（Heard island）、麦克唐纳群岛（McDonald Islands）被加征10%关税，而驻有美英军队的英属印度洋领地（British Indian Ocean Territory）同样上榜。

以莱索托为例，该国对美出口价值2.37亿美元的钻石与其他商品，同时，由于该国贫困，无力购买大多数美国出口商品，造成美国对莱索托的贸易逆差。逆差与进口额之比畸高，经公式运算后得出50%的新关税。

莱索托马塞卢，女性在街头制作传统巴索托帽并出售 图源：VCG

汤普森讽刺道：“认为美国必须对莱索托宝石征税才能在俄亥俄州增加钢铁就业岗位的观点荒谬至极，荒谬到我写到这句话时都差点昏厥过去。”

The Trump team seems to have calculated each penalty by dividing the US trade deficit with a given country by how much the US imports from it and then doing a rough adjustment. Because Lesotho's citizens are too poor to afford most US exports, while the US imports $237 million in diamonds and other goods from the small landlocked nation, we have reserved close to our highest-possible tariff rate for one of the world's poorest countries. The notion that taxing Lesotho gemstones is necessary for the US to add steel jobs in Ohio is so absurd that I briefly lost consciousness in the middle of writing this sentence.

这暴露了特朗普关税政策的本质——它无关经济理性，而是“特朗普人格在整个政府内部的转移蔓延”（all-of-government metastasis of Trump's personality）。

If the tariffs violate their own internal logic and basic common sense, what are they? Most likely, they represent little more than the all-of-government metastasis of Trump's personality, which sees grandiosity as a strategy to pull counterparties to the negotiating table and strike deals that benefit Trump's ego or wallet.

正如特朗普在《交易的艺术》中坦承的个人哲学：“瞄准极高目标，不断施压，直到获得我想要的。”这种思维，使得关税成为权力和杠杆的无限游戏。

This personality style is clear, and it has been clearly stated, even if its application to geopolitics is confounding to observe. "My style of deal-making is pretty simple and straightforward," Trump writes in The Art of the Deal. "I aim very high, and then l just keep pushing and pushing and pushing to get what I'm after. Sometimes I settle for less than I sought but in most cases I still end up with what I want."

特朗普支持者将这种“混乱战术”美化为“打破支离破碎的体系”，但汤普森尖锐指出其代价：经济增长需要正和与长期规划（positive-sum and long-term-oriented），而特朗普的个性始终是零和且急功近利的（zero-sum and urgent）。

“当我们的贸易政策似乎每月都可能因特朗普亲自与全球各国谈判而改变时，一家纺织公司真的会想在美国开设工厂吗？在‘解放日关税’引发全球抛售，导致国际衰退时，制造业企业真的应该投资昂贵的工厂扩建吗？”

Trump's defenders praise the president for using chaos to shake up broken systems. But they fail to see the downside of uncertainty. ls a textile company really supposed to open a US factory when our trade policy seems likely to change every month as Trump personally negotiates with the entire planet? Are manufacturing firms really supposed to invest in expensive factory expansions when the Liberation Day tariffs caused a global sell-off that signals an international downturn? Trump's personality is, and has always been, zero-sum and urgent, craving chaos, but economic growth is positive-sum and long-term-oriented, craving certainty for its largest investments.

莱索托的高额关税，最终照见的是一个被个性统治的贸易体系。当财政部长的回答是“我们只能拭目以待”，当经济政策成为达达主义艺术品，当“威胁、杠杆、让步、重复”（threat, leverage, concession, repeat）的剧本在整个社会和国际贸易中上演，正如汤普森所说：“最可怕的不是关税数字，而是数字背后的信息——我们都活在这位总统的脑子里，而那里，没人知道是怎么回事。”

The scariest thing about the Trump tariffs isn't the numbers, but the underlying message. We're all living inside the president's head, and nobody knows anything.

来源：中国日报双语微信