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研究称特朗普的关税损害了美国就业但影响了美国选民
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/02/us/politics/trump-tariffs-jobs-voters.html
新的研究发现，前总统唐纳德·J·特朗普的关税并没有带回美国的就业机会，但选民似乎还是奖励了他的关税。
一辆车辆正在从大片大豆田里收割庄稼。
北京决定征收报复性关税，向中国出口大豆、棉花和高粱的美国农民受到的打击尤其严重。 图片版权：Rory Doyle for The New York Times
安娜·斯旺森（Ana Swanson） 安娜·斯旺森（Ana Swanson）报道了特朗普和拜登政府的贸易政策。 2024 年 2 月 2 日
一项新的研究表明，前总统唐纳德·J·特朗普对中国和其他美国贸易伙伴征收的全面关税既是政治上的成功，也是经济上的失败。 这是因为这些征税措施为共和党赢得了选民的支持，尽管它们没有带来就业机会。
这份无党派工作文件审查了美国各行业就业月度数据发现，特朗普从 2018 年开始对外国金属、洗衣机和一系列来自中国的商品征收关税，既没有增加也没有减少受影响地区的就业总数。 行业。
但该报发现，这些关税确实促使其他国家对美国产品征收报复性关税，使这些产品销往海外的成本更高，而且这些关税对美国的就业产生了负面影响。 在农业领域尤其如此：北京决定将这些产品的关税提高至高达 25%，向中国出口大豆、棉花和高粱的农民受到了打击。
特朗普政府旨在通过向农民提供财政支持来抵消这些损失，最终在 2018 年和 2019 年发放了 230 亿美元。但政府评估发现，这些资金分配不均，经济学家表示，这些补贴仅部分减轻了农民遭受的损失。 是关税造成的。
这些调查结果与特朗普的说法相矛盾，特朗普声称他的关税有助于扭转来自中国的竞争造成的部分损害，并将流失到海外的美国制造业就业岗位带回美国。 经济学家得出的结论是，这三项措施——最初的关税、报复性关税和向农民提供的补贴——对美国就业的总体影响“充其量只是一次打击，而且可能是轻微的负面影响”。
研究报告的作者之一、苏黎世大学的戴维·多恩 (David Dorn) 在一份报告中表示：“当然，你可以拒绝这样的假设，即这项关税政策非常成功地为那些经常受到关税战影响的行业带来了就业机会。” 面试。
即便如此，研究人员的研究表明，对外国产品征收激进关税对于特朗普和共和党来说是政治上的成功。
该研究根据总统和国会选举的计票数据表明，生活在受关税影响地区的人们——尤其是中西部、五大湖周边地区和南方——更有可能投票支持特朗普连任。 2020 年特朗普当选。据该报称，他们也变得不太可能认为自己是民主党人，而更有可能选举共和党人进入国会。
这些政治信念并非完全不受经济影响：在关税和补贴对就业市场产生更积极影响的地区，共和党的选举收益更为强劲。 该报称，其他国家针对特朗普征税而征收的报复性关税确实削弱了对共和党的支持，但幅度不大。
尽管如此，经济学家推测，过去几十年来受到中国经济竞争严重打击的地区的选民可能将关税视为“政治团结的标志”，而不是它们对就业产生的实际影响。
多恩表示：“从共和党的角度来看，人们对当地产业的进口保护反应非常积极，积极，但如果他们所在的地区面临报复性关税，他们不会对共和党人造成太大惩罚。”
除了多恩先生之外，该研究的作者还包括麻省理工学院的大卫·奥托、世界银行的安妮·贝克和哈佛大学肯尼迪学院的戈登·H·汉森。
奥托先生、多恩先生和汉森先生对“中国冲击”进行了有影响力的研究，量化了中国加入世界贸易组织导致美国制造业就业减少的程度。 他们后来的工作研究了这些失业如何影响美国中心地带的政治趋势，包括导致政治两极分化和共和党支持率的增加。
多恩表示，美国经济在贸易战期间强劲增长，这可能影响了选民对关税影响的看法。 “这就是那句著名的话，‘这是经济，愚蠢的’”他说。
“人们很难完全找出经济衰退的原因
进展顺利，”多恩先生补充道。 “经济运行良好是因为某些特定的政府政策，还是尽管有政府政策，经济仍运行良好？”
这些调查结果发布之际，特朗普先生作为候选人承诺在 2024 年采取更加激进的贸易措施。特朗普先生宣布之前的关税措施取得了成功，并提议如果连任，将出台更广泛的征税计划，其中包括 10% 的关税 所有进口商品的“基准”关税。
在经历了数十年贸易迅速扩张、供应链全球化以及许多美国工厂转移到海外之后，近年来，民主党和共和党都越来越愿意接受对美国工业的保护。
虽然拜登降低了特朗普实施的部分关税，例如对欧洲的关税，但他保留了对中国的关税和其他措施。 拜登政府官员还在讨论进一步提高电动汽车等一些战略产品的关税。
支持者认为，关税阻止中国向美国大量供应廉价商品，保护脆弱的美国制造业并为联邦政府创造收入。
批评人士表示，关税只会提高美国消费者的价格，并对在商品上花更多钱的低收入人群造成特殊负担。 关税还增加了依赖外国投入的美国工厂的成本，这可能使美国产品变得更加昂贵，并降低国际竞争力。
研究称，在特朗普任职期间，美国对中国商品的平均关税在短短两年内从3.1%升至21%，而中国对美国商品的平均关税从8%升至21.8%。
该研究的作者表示，目前尚不清楚为什么进口关税没有给美国带来更多就业机会。 一种可能性是，企业只是从其他成本较低的国家进口产品，而不是从中国进口，这一趋势在贸易数据中显而易见。
多恩表示，在某些情况下，获得进口保护的美国工业最终销售额会更高。 一种可能性是，美国公司发现，在征收关税后，他们可以在不提高产量的情况下提高价格。
该报称，在贸易战期间未能带来实质性就业增长的关税是否可能在较长时期内创造更多就业机会，这仍然是一个悬而未决的问题。
安娜·斯旺森 (Ana Swanson) 驻华盛顿，为《泰晤士报》报道贸易和国际经济问题。 她当记者已经十多年了。
Trump's Tariffs Hurt U.S. Jobs but Swayed American Voters, Study Says
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/02/us/politics/trump-tariffs-jobs-voters.html
New research finds that former President Donald J. Trump’s tariffs did not bring back U.S. jobs, but voters appeared to reward him for the levies anyway.
American farmers who exported soybeans, cotton and sorghum to China were hit particularly hard by Beijing’s decision to impose retaliatory tariffs.Credit...Rory Doyle for The New York Times
The sweeping tariffs that former President Donald J. Trump imposed on China and other American trading partners were simultaneously a political success and an economic failure, a new study suggests. That’s because the levies won over voters for the Republican Party even though they did not bring back jobs.
The nonpartisan working paper examines monthly data on U.S. employment by industry to find that the tariffs that Mr. Trump placed on foreign metals, washing machines and an array of goods from China starting in 2018 neither raised nor lowered the overall number of jobs in the affected industries.
But the tariffs did incite other countries to impose their own retaliatory tariffs on American products, making them more expensive to sell overseas, and those levies had a negative effect on American jobs, the paper finds. That was particularly true in agriculture: Farmers who exported soybeans, cotton and sorghum to China were hit by Beijing’s decision to raise tariffs on those products to as much as 25 percent.
The Trump administration aimed to offset those losses by offering financial support for farmers, ultimately giving out $23 billion in 2018 and 2019. But those funds were distributed unevenly, a government assessment found, and the economists say those subsidies only partially mitigated the harm that had been caused by the tariffs.
The findings contradict Mr. Trump’s claims that his tariffs helped to reverse some of the damage done by competition from China and bring back American manufacturing jobs that had gone overseas. The economists conclude that the aggregate effect on U.S. jobs of the three measures — the original tariffs, retaliatory tariffs and subsidies granted to farmers — were “at best a wash, and it may have been mildly negative.”
“Certainly you can reject the hypothesis that this tariff policy was very successful at bringing back jobs to those industries that got a lot of exposure to that tariff war,” one of the study authors, David Dorn of the University of Zurich, said in an interview.
Even so, the researchers’ work suggests that aggressive tariffs on foreign products were a political success for Mr. Trump and the Republican Party.
Drawing from data on vote counts for presidential and congressional elections, the study suggests that people living in areas affected by the tariffs — particularly the Midwest, the area around the Great Lakes, and the South — became more likely to vote to re-elect Mr. Trump in 2020. They also became less likely to identify as Democrats, and more likely to elect Republicans to Congress, according to the paper.
Those political beliefs were not entirely immune to economic effects: Republican electoral gains were stronger in locations where tariffs and subsidies had a more positive effect on the job market. And the retaliatory tariffs that other countries imposed in response to Mr. Trump’s levies did weaken support for Republicans, but only modestly, the paper said.
Still, the economists speculate that voters in areas that were hit hard by economic competition from China in past decades may have valued the tariffs “as a sign of political solidarity,” rather than for the actual consequences they had on jobs.
“People react very positively, positively from a Republican point of view, to import protection of their local industry,” Mr. Dorn said, “but they don’t punish Republicans that much if their location gets exposed to retaliatory tariffs.”
In addition to Mr. Dorn, the study’s authors are David Autor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Anne Beck of the World Bank and Gordon H. Hanson of the Harvard Kennedy School.
Mr. Autor, Mr. Dorn and Mr. Hanson have conducted influential research on “the China shock,” which quantified how much China’s joining the World Trade Organization had reduced U.S. manufacturing employment. Their later work examined how those job losses have influenced political trends in the U.S. heartland, including leading to political polarization and increased Republican support.
Mr. Dorn said that the American economy was growing strongly during the trade war, which may have influenced voters’ perceptions of the effects that tariffs had. “It’s the famous, ‘It’s the economy, stupid,’” he said.
“It is very, very difficult for people to sort of fully isolate why the economy is going well,” Mr. Dorn added. “Is the economy going well because of some particular government policy, or is the economy going well despite the government policy?”
The findings come as Mr. Trump is promising even more aggressive trade measures as a candidate in 2024. Mr. Trump has proclaimed his previous tariffs a success and proposed to issue an even more expansive program of levies if re-elected, including a 10 percent “base-line” tariff on all imported goods.
Both Democrats and Republicans have shown an increased willingness to embrace protections for American industry in recent years, after decades in which trade rapidly expanded, supply chains globalized and many U.S. factories shifted overseas.
While Mr. Biden has reduced some of the tariffs Mr. Trump put into effect, for example those on Europe, he has kept the China tariffs and other measures in place. Biden administration officials are also debating raising tariffs on some strategic products, like electric vehicles, further.
Proponents argue that tariffs deter China from flooding the United States with cheap goods, protecting vulnerable American manufacturing industries and generating revenue for the federal government.
Critics say tariffs simply raise prices for American consumers and pose a particular burden for lower-income people who spend more of their money on goods. Tariffs also increase costs for American factories that depend on foreign inputs, which can make U.S. products more expensive and less competitive internationally.
During Mr. Trump’s tenure, the average U.S. tariff on Chinese goods jumped from 3.1 percent to 21 percent within just two years, while the average Chinese tariff on U.S. goods rose from 8 percent to 21.8 percent, the study says.
The study authors say it is not clear precisely why import tariffs did not result in more U.S. jobs. One possibility is that firms simply imported products from other lower-cost countries, rather than China, a trend that is visible in trade data.
In some cases, Mr. Dorn said, U.S. industries that received import protection ended up having higher sales; one possibility is that American firms found that they could raise their prices after tariffs were imposed without raising their output.
It remains an open question whether tariffs that failed to generate substantial job gains during the trade war might create more jobs over longer periods, the paper said.
Ana Swanson covers trade and international economics for The Times and is based in Washington. She has been a journalist for more than a decade. More about Ana Swanson
