魏尚进：哈里斯VS特朗普——经贸策略对决

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■作者：魏尚进 复旦大学国际金融学院学术访问教授、哥伦比亚大学终身讲席教授、亚洲开发银行前首席经济学家

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目前给世界经济带来不确定性的一大因素是，11月的美国大选后谁将成为下一任总统。自从民主党候选人卡玛拉·哈里斯取代了拜登，成为新的领跑者，不确定性变大了。因为原来民调预测特朗普会胜过拜登，但哈里斯在民调中已经抹平了前总统特朗普的领先优势。尽管美国人口仅占全球总人口的5%，其GDP占全球增加值的15%，但美国在全球经济中占据着举足轻重的地位，其政策对世界其他经济体也有深远的外溢效应。

特朗普表示，他计划将美国对中国进口商品的关税提高到60%，而对其他国家的进口商品关税提高到10%。这可能会引发其他国家的报复性关税措施。这些关税政策将违反美国在世贸组织框架下的多项法律义务。然而，因为美国已经极大地削弱了世贸组织贸易争端解决机制的效力，它在短期内不太可能因为自身的违规行为而遭受 WTO的制裁。

尽管中国的对美出口将遭受最严重的冲击，但许多其他国家的对美出口同样会呈现下滑趋势。对于那些向美国出口的商品能替代中国产品国家而言，情况则另当别论。

如果美国的贸易壁垒的加码影响了中国的经济增长，这将转化为中国对其他国家商品的需求下降。对于那些将中国视为主要贸易伙伴的国家，这种影响尤为显著。这其中包括韩国、日本以及东南亚诸国。

此外，中国与众多国家的企业共同构成了全球生产链。例如，许多韩国和日本公司先向中国出口零部件，或者与中国制造的零部件结合在一起，或者在中国组装成最终产品再出口到美国和其他国家。这意味着，中国对美国的出口若减少，将间接影响到韩国、日本以及其他国家对中国零部件的出口量。许多国家正考虑在印度、越南等地区重新布局供应链，但这一转变不仅成本昂贵，而且很难完全解决根本问题。

除了这些相对直观明显的预测，还有另外两个不太直观但也很重要的影响。首先，美国对许多国家的出口也会出现下降。这一出人意料的预测源于一种宏观经济的平衡制约：美国整体的贸易逆差主要不是由美国的单边贸易政策决定的，而是由美国国民储蓄相对于投资的缺口决定的。由于特朗普的贸易政策不太可能大幅提升美国的储蓄水平，美国出口的减少很可能与美国进口的减少相匹配。这意味着，特朗普的关税政策可能会进一步削弱美国作为许多国家贸易伙伴的相对地位。

其次，特朗普关税政策冲击进一步破坏了美国曾助力构建的基于规则的全球经济体系。如果世贸组织不能遏制美国的非法保护主义政策，将有更多的国家受到诱导，提高关税或采取其他保护主义政策。这种诱导在国内收入不平等问题严重的国家尤其强烈，在这些国家，关税和其他进口壁垒被民粹主义政客作为解决不平等问题的灵丹妙药来兜售。

哈里斯在关税政策方面的立场尚不明朗。作为拜登的副手，她可能会继承拜登的贸易策略——这被一些人视为拜登经济政策中最糟糕的部分。如果是这样的话，哈里斯政府也会经历美国作为贸易强国地位的逐渐减弱，尽管下降速度可能不会像特朗普时期那样快。 

然而，如果哈里斯担任总统，她的政策与拜登的相比可能会出现两大差异。首先，她或许会从奥巴马、克林顿等其他几位民主党前总统而不一定只是从拜登那里寻找贸易政策的灵感。比如，她可能会试图找到重振美国在全球贸易谈判中的领导角色的方法，包括重返经过改革的《全面与进步跨太平洋伙伴关系协定》（CPTPP）。CPTPP是美国在奥巴马政府时期最初倡导的一个区域性贸易协定，它不仅促进成员国之间更大的市场准入，而且对国有企业的行为、政府采购和补贴规则提出了更严格的制度要求。由于这些附加的制度规则，CPTPP在促进成员国进行制度性改革方面，可能被视为超越了WTO的标准。

CPTPP最终于2018年在没有美国参与的情况下达成协议。尽管CPTPP的要求目前使中国无法成为成员国，但中国已经正式申请加入CPTPP，这表明它愿意在国有企业和市场准入方面进行政策改革。由于美国不愿看到一个包含中国却排除自己的CPTPP，它或许现在有更强的动机加入该组织。

其次，哈里斯政府还可能逆转特朗普对中国征收的关税。拜登没有这么做是因为他的贸易政策参谋者不知道怎样说服选民：特朗普的关税有害无益。其实，去掉特朗普关税就是为美国中产阶级和低收入家庭减税，并且还有助于降低他们的生活成本。

总而言之，特朗普若再次当选总统，对全球贸易体系而言就是一个新的负面大冲击，其结果是全球的输家远多于赢家。我们还无法肯定哈里斯会如何选择贸易官员，或者她能否战胜党内的保护主义势力。但如果她能够成功地将国内的收入再分配政策与较为开放的贸易策略相结合，她将有机会引导美国在全球经济领导中扮演积极角色，帮助促进全球贸易进入一个复苏的新时代。

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How Different is Harris versus Trump for the World Trade and Economy?

Shang-Jin Wei

Editor-in-chief of Fudan Financial Review

Professor of Finance and Economics of Columbia University

A big uncertainty over the world economy is who will be the US President after its November election. The replacement of Biden by Kamala Harris on top of the Democrat’s ticket has raised the level of uncertainty as she has erased the lead by former President Trump in the polls. Even though the United States has only 5% of the world population and 15% of the world's value added, it has the most dominant role in world economy and its policy has strong spillover for other economies.

Trump has said he will raise the US tariffs on imports from China to 60%, and those from all other countries to 10%. This will likely trigger retaliatory tariff responses from other countries. The proposed tariffs will be a violation of multiple US legal obligations under the World Trade Organization. But the US has made the WTO’s trade dispute settlement so ineffectual that its violations will not meet a penalty from the WTO in the near future. 

While the Chinese exports to the US will take the biggest hit, many other countries’ exports to the US will also decline given the higher trade barriers in the US.  An exception is those countries whose exports to the US are a substitute for the Chinese goods. 

If the US escalation manages to reduce the Chinese growth further, that will translate into a lower demand by China for other countries’ goods. This effect is more important for countries that currently have China as a leading trading partner. They include Korea, Japan, and Southeast Asian nations. 

Moreover, many these countries and China form a part of global production chains. For example, many Korean and Japanese firms export parts and components to China, to be combined with China-made parts and components, or assembled in China into final products that are then exported to the United States and other countries. This means that any reduction in Chinese exports to the United States indirectly translates into a reduction in the exports of parts and components from Korea, Japan, and other countries in China. Many countries will seek to re-establish supply chains in India, Vietnam, and elsewhere, but such actions are often costly and can only imperfectly bypass the problem.

Besides these relatively obvious predictions, there are two other less obvious effects that are nevertheless also significant. First, the US exports to many countries will likely decline (relative to what would have happened without the Trump shock). This seemingly surprising prediction stems from a macroeconomic balance restriction: the overall US trade deficit is determined less by US unilateral trade policy but more by a shortage of US national savings relative to its investment. As the Trump trade policy is unlikely to dramatically improve the US savings, the reduction in the US imports is likely to be matched by a reduction in the US exports. This means that the Trump tariffs will further reduce the relative importance of the US as a trading partner for many countries.

Second, the Trump tariff shock further undermines the rules-based global economic order that the US has helped to put together. If the WTO cannot check the illegal protectionist policies of the US, many more countries will be tempted to raise their tariffs or otherwise engage in protectionist policies. Such temptation is especially strong in countries with a severe domestic income inequality problem where tariffs and other import barriers are sold by populist politicians as a solution to the inequality problem.

Harris' policies on tariffs are less clear. Since she is the Vice President to Biden, she could adopt President Biden’s approach to trade (which is the worst part of President Biden’s economic policy legacy). If this is the case, the Harris Administration will also preside over a relative decline of the United States as a trading nation, though the decline may not be as fast as under Trump.

However, a future President Harris could differ from President Biden in two important ways. First, she could instead look to other recent Democratic presidents for inspiration for trade policies: Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. In particular, she could find ways to revive the US leadership in global trade negotiations, including a return to a reformed Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). CPTPP is a regional trade agreement originally championed by the United States under the Obama administration that not only promotes greater market access among the member countries but also imposes stronger institutional requirements on the conduct of state-owned firms, government procurement and subsidy rules. Because these added institutional rules, it may be considered “WTO plus” in terms of its ability to induce institutional reforms by member countries.

CPTPP was eventually concluded in 2018 without the United States in the membership.  While the stringent rules of the CPTPP currently disqualify China as a possible member, China has since applied for its membership, signaling its willingness to engage in policy reforms on state-owned firms and market access. Because the US would not like to see a CPTPP that includes China but excludes itself, it may now have a stronger incentive to join the bloc.

Second, the Harris administration can also reverse the Trump tariffs on China. President Biden has not done so because his trade policy team does not know how to explain it to the voters. In fact, reversing the Trump tariffs is equivalent to implementing a tax cut for American middle-class and low-income families that also helps to reduce their cost of living.

To summarize, a Trump Presidency will mean another negative shock to the global trading system, creating far more losers than the winners. There is no guarantee that President Harris will pick the right trade advisors or be able to overcome the protectionist force within her party. But if she is able to combine domestic redistribution policies together with a relatively open trade agenda, she may usher in a period of global trade revival under a best-version of the US global economic leadership. 

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