The Guardian-Trump tariff on China could lower global inflation says UK economist
November 25, 2024 3 min 502 words
英国《卫报》的这篇报道主要内容是，英国经济学家英国央行利率制定委员会外部成员斯瓦蒂丁格拉（Swati Dhingra）表示，特朗普对中国商品征收高额关税可能会降低全球通货膨胀，因为中国出口商可能会降低在其他国家的价格以维持贸易量，从而导致全球商品价格下跌。但同时，也有经济学家警告称，特朗普对美国贸易伙伴征收惩罚性进口关税将提高美国消费者成本，推动美国通货膨胀上行。 评论：这篇报道存在一定偏见，其观点过于片面。报道中，丁格拉提到特朗普的关税政策可能会导致全球通胀下行，但这只是该政策可能产生的影响之一。正如文中经济学家所警告的，该政策也会对全球经济造成影响，尤其是对中国和美国的经济造成冲击。此外，报道中没有提到中国可能采取的反制措施，以及这些措施对全球经济的影响。报道只强调关税政策的潜在积极影响，而忽视了其潜在的负面后果，这显然是不全面的。此外，报道中还提到了英国脱欧导致英国物价上涨，这可能暗示着特朗普的关税政策也会导致美国物价上涨，但报道并没有明确指出这一点。总的来说，这篇报道有选择地呈现事实，忽略了可能对报道中观点不利的影响因素，存在一定的偏见。
Donald Trump imposing massive US tariffs on Chinese imports could drag down global inflation by lowering the price of goods in other countries, a senior Bank of England policymaker has said.
Swati Dhingra, an external member of the Bank’s rate-setting monetary policy committee, said Trump imposing a threatened 60% tariff on goods from China sold in the US could lead Chinese exporters to cut their prices elsewhere to ensure they maintained current trade volumes.
“If there is the kind of big 60% type of tariff increase that’s been proposed, that will have repercussions on to world prices, and mostly on the downward direction,” she said.
Speaking at a conference in London on Monday, the economist said there was heightened uncertainty about what policies the president-elect would carry through from the campaign trail. Trump warned before this month’s election that he would slap tariffs of up to 60% on China and up to 20% on other US trade partners.
However, Dhingra said the “textbook” impact of the world’s largest goods importer imposing such a large tariff on products from the world’s biggest exporter would be for global goods prices to fall.
Chinese firms would respond to tougher trade barriers by attempting to find buyers in alternative markets, which could lead them to lower their prices to sell similar volumes, including in the UK, she said.
“It takes a massive amount of demand out of the world market. The way exporters, say in China, would respond to that would be to respond with prices, world prices, as they don’t want to lose market share,” she said.
Economists have warned Trump imposing punitive import tariffs on US trading partners will drive up inflation in the world’s largest economy, as the costs would be borne by US consumers. However, it would also impact the wider global economy.
Dhingra said much would depend on the response to a burgeoning trade war, particularly if governments chose to retaliate with “tit for tat” tariffs on US imports, or with protectionist measures to prevent an influx of cheap Chinese goods reallocating away from the US market.
“Then we’re in a completely different situation,” she said.
Drawing a comparison with Brexit, Dhingra said that leaving the EU had led to “permanently” higher prices of products for British households. This had generated inflation as prices rose, before prices stabilised at a higher level.
“We saw much higher price increases in the UK compared to everywhere else and those pressures have now come off much more quickly as well, for the reason they’re not inflationary, they change the price levels, permanently,” she said.
Analysts have warned that the euro risks falling to parity with the US dollar for the first time since late 2022 if a new transatlantic trade war weakens the already struggling eurozone economy.