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RESIDENT DONALD Trump’s bullying of America’s allies and neighbours may appeal to the maga base. Unfortunately, investors feel otherwise. Confidence in the prospects for the American economy has been sapped and financial markets are sinking. The S&P 500 index of American stocks has dropped by 9% since its peak in February. Because Mr Trump’s on-again, off-again protectionism defies logic, their faith in his administration’s ability to steer the economy is evaporating.
唐纳德·特朗普总统对美国盟友和邻国的欺凌可能会吸引“玛噶”的支持者。不幸的是，投资者却不这么认为。对美国经济前景的信心已经减弱，金融市场正在下滑。美国股市的标准普尔 500 指数自 2 月份达到峰值以来已下跌 9%。由于特朗普反复无常的保护主义违背逻辑，投资者对他政府引导经济的能力的信心正在消失。
It is the same with the dollar. As Mr Trump has threatened tariff after tariff, it has fallen, dropping by nearly 6% against a basket of other currencies since mid-January. Most notable is its decline against the euro, spurred by expectations of a surge in European defence spending.
美元也是如此。随着特朗普不断威胁征收关税，美元汇率不断下跌，自 1 月中旬以来，美元兑一篮子其他货币已下跌近 6%。最明显的是美元兑欧元的下跌，原因是欧洲国防开支激增的预期。
One source of confusion is that Mr Trump’s team say they want different things. Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, maintains that the administration wants a strong dollar, in line with recent American policy. Both Mr Trump and J.D. Vance, the vice-president, believe that the strength of the greenback is holding back American industry. Currency traders whisper about a “Mar-a-Lago Accord”, a repeat of the Plaza Accord that in the 1980s prodded America’s main trading partners to co-operate to weaken the strong dollar, and which was first proposed by Stephen Miran, now an adviser to Mr Trump.
令人困惑的是，特朗普的团队声称他们想要的东西各不相同。财政部长斯科特·贝森特 (Scott Bessent) 坚持认为，政府希望美元坚挺，这与美国最近的政策一致。特朗普和副总统 JD Vance 都认为美元强势阻碍了美国工业的发展。货币交易员私下里传出“海湖庄园协议”的消息，这是 20 世纪 80 年代广场协议的翻版，该协议促使美国的主要贸易伙伴合作削弱强势美元，该协议由现任特朗普顾问的斯蒂芬·米兰 (Stephen Miran) 首次提出。
Another source of confusion is that, just as with Mr Trump’s tariff policy, the administration misunderstands the benefits and costs of having a weak currency. Proponents of a weak dollar say that it would help make exports more competitive. But the growth of global value chains in manufacturing over recent decades has blunted the impact of exchange rates on sales of goods abroad, because exporters today incorporate more imported material than they once did. In addition, the costs of currency weakness are widely felt. If the 13m Americans in manufacturing jobs benefit, that must be set against nearly 300m consumers who will pay for the rising cost of imports. Already households’ inflation expectations are rising, even though consumer-price inflation data, published on March 12th, came in a little below market forecasts.
另一个令人困惑的因素是，就像特朗普的关税政策一样，政府误解了弱势货币的利弊。弱势美元的支持者表示，这将有助于提高出口竞争力。但近几十年来，制造业全球价值链的增长削弱了汇率对海外商品销售的影响，因为如今出口商进口的原材料比以前更多。此外，货币疲软的代价是广泛存在的。如果说 1300 万美国制造业从中受益，那么必须与将为进口成本上涨买单的近 3 亿消费者形成鲜明对比。尽管 3 月 12 日发布的消费者价格通胀数据略低于市场预期，但家庭的通胀预期已经在上升。
The final—and most corrosive—source of confusion is the baffling logic behind the administration’s policies. By themselves, tariffs should boost the value of the greenback, as Americans buy fewer imports and therefore less foreign currency. Although the dollar may have fallen particularly sharply against the euro because of European spending, its weakness against other major currencies points to an act of grave self-harm: that the hit to the American economy from tariffs is more than outweighing their direct impact.
最后一个也是最令人困惑的因素是政府政策背后令人费解的逻辑。关税本身应该会推高美元的价值，因为美国人购买的进口商品更少，因此外汇也更少。尽管美元兑欧元可能因欧洲支出而大幅下跌，但美元兑其他主要货币的疲软表明了一种严重的自我伤害行为：关税对美国经济的打击远远超过其直接影响。
Consider the wildest suggestion of the weak-dollar enthusiasts, floated by Mr Miran. This is to tax foreign governments that hold Treasury bonds, in order to deter them from owning dollars. That makes no sense. It may not even achieve its purpose of weakening the greenback, because academic research is unclear whether reserve-currency status has consistently boosted the dollar’s value. Even if it did work, it should worry anyone who cares about America’s ability to project its power across the world. Financial sanctions against Russia, and those about to be deployed against Iran, would be less effective if the dollar made up a smaller portion of overseas trade and finance.
米兰先生提出的弱美元支持者最疯狂的建议就是，对持有美国国债的外国政府征税，以阻止他们持有美元。这毫无意义。它甚至可能无法实现削弱美元的目的，因为学术研究尚不清楚储备货币地位是否持续提升了美元的价值。即使它确实有效，也应该让任何关心美国在全球投射力量能力的人感到担忧。如果美元在海外贸易和金融中所占份额较小，对俄罗斯的金融制裁以及即将对伊朗实施的金融制裁将不那么有效。
For decades investors were drawn by America’s exceptionalism: its strong growth and a government that was a wise steward of the economy. Now they are waking up to impulsiveness and incoherence. American assets will suffer.
几十年来，投资者一直被美国的卓越性所吸引：强劲的增长和明智管理经济的政府。现在他们开始意识到美国的冲动和不连贯。美国资产将遭受损失。
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