（原标题：SFC Markets and Finance | Global Scholars Share Insights on Trump 2.0）
南方财经全媒体记者杨雨莱 李依农广州报道
On January 20, Donald Trump was sworn in as the 47th president of the United States. Immediately afterward, he began to implement a series of "America First" policies.
In terms of international trade, he continued with the high-tariff policy from his first term, preparing to fill the U.S. Treasury with overseas funds.
In the energy sector, Trump declared a national energy emergency to increase the extraction of traditional energy sources. He planned to end the Biden administration "Green New Deal", revoke incentives for electric vehicles, and attempt to rescue the traditional American automotive industry.
What impact will Trump's economic policies have on the U.S. economy? Will they lead to higher domestic inflation? How to view the prospects for the U.S. economy? David Blair, the U.S. Senior Economist brought his answers to us.
The U.S. Inflation may not go up
David Blair: I think you have to look at the overall policies. Essentially, the inflation has been caused by very rapid increases in government spending, essentially the Federal Reserve (Fed) is creating more money. Technically, the Fed is buying bonds from the government. But essentially that means there's a lot more money going out in the economy. So that's the main cause. It'll require Fed's intervention to stop that.
I think the Department of Government Efficiency is a critical part of this overall plan. So essentially they're talking about cutting at least 10% federal government budget spending, two trillion U.S. dollar or so. So if they can implement that, then there will be a lot less need for the federal government to borrow money. Essentially, they're talking about firing lots of people in Washington DC, also about removing regulations, which essentially will increase the efficiency of the economy.
The regulations about automotives are designed to protect workers, particularly in the U.S. Midwest. Cutting essentially energy prices show up in everywhere in the economy. So I think in combination, I don't think you'll see an increase in inflation. If you had the tariffs by themselves, you probably would see inflation in some categories, but the main concern there is protecting jobs, not directly related to prices.
The U.S. society still carries many burdens
David Blair: So I think if they cut energy prices, reduce regulations, succeed in cutting the Federal's budget that there's a chance that you could see a booming economy where return on higher investment, and people have more money in their pockets and will be able to spend more.
There are a few things that really need to be cut. I mentioned housing and food prices, but the worst things that affect everybody are college educations. These universities have increased their prices astonishingly. So essentially their prices (drive) the middle-class and especially the working class out of that, and that destroy a lot of their hopes for the future. And the healthcare system is out of control. So I don't know what Trump (will do), those two things are going to be hard to change. But they're really a huge mess and they're a huge burden for the American people now. So they've got to do something about changing them.
Trump also announced on the January 20th that he will impose a 25% tariff on goods imported from Canada and Mexico starting February 1st. What changes will Trump 2.0's tariff policy bring to the world? Let's talk to Carl Fey, the Professor of Strategy at BI Norwegian Business School.
SFC Markets and Finance: How do you assess the impact of Trump's trade policies on the global trade landscape?
High tariffs harm global innovation and development
Carl Fey: I think in general that it's better to have low tariffs in the world or no tariffs. Different countries have different resources and are better set to do different things. There is not one best industry to work in. There is a best industry for each country. And by collaborating together we can do better, especially in innovation, people, due to where they grew up and (their) experiences, they've had seen things differently.
So I'm concerned that the Trump administration plans to place tariffs. It's important to note that it sounds appealing to say we're going to place tariffs and protect U.S. industry. I can recognize while it appears, and sometimes in the short term, it can be a good thing, but generally in the long term (it) does not do a good job. Just to take a couple of examples here, one thing is that Trump plans to place probably February 1st tariffs on Canada and Mexico.
The U.S. has not the highest labor costs in the world, but surely not very low labor costs. And so having not had significant tariffs with Mexico has helped many U.S. industries be able to flourish and leverage those lower labor costs in Mexico. I'm very concerned that this is going to make the U.S. much less competitive.
So a second issue is that, Trump has, for example, talked to steel workers. He said we're going to put in these tariffs and this is going to help the steel industry and everyone gets very excited. Now, a lot of this is automated compared to how it was 20 or 30 years ago. Even if you put in tariffs at an extreme level to allow this to happen, you're not going to create so many jobs as many people may think.
And one of the most encouraging things of yesterday was that I was worried he would immediately place more tariffs on China. But as you probably know in his inaugural address and subsequent executive orders, he has instructed that there is a need to seriously relook at U.S. trade policy.
The other thing that's going to happen if tariffs go higher is that countries are naturally and companies are naturally going to reshore more of their activity and start to try to be more self-sufficient. And this is not good, especially for the innovation and development and also having as cheap costs as possible domestically. When the U.S. puts tariffs on Chinese products or Mexican products or whatever country's products, someone has to pay for these higher costs. Companies don't just absorb this cost, eventually the consumer pays higher prices. And so what's going to happen is that these tariffs are going to fuel inflation and inflation is already a problem in most countries in the world today. And so these policies are going to push inflation higher and not be a good thing for the world.
SFC Markets and Finance: What changes will occur in global supply chains?
Tariffs will have lasting effect on global supply chain
Carl Fey: The policy that has probably had the longest lasting effect on the global trade and the supply chain is placing tariff, and preventing even semiconductors from the U.S. to be sold to China. I really don't think this was a smart move.
Not only China, even allies in Western Europe and wherever, will be very concerned if the U.S. might do something like this in the future. And so any rational country has no choice but to be sure that they have at least two countries that they can purchase any input or even thing that they need just to live in function. So I think this is the greatest long-lasting problem that we'll see.
And we see that China in the last few years has ramped up very significantly (in) its higher end semiconductor production. In the short term, it has caused some pain to China, but in the long term, it actually pushes China to be an important player in an industry that the U.S. had previously dominated. That is the high-end semiconductor chips.
After taking office, Trump signed an executive order, announcing that the United States would withdraw once again from the Paris Agreement, which is aimed at combating climate change.
In 2020, during Trump's first term, the U.S. withdrew from the Paris Agreement for the first time. With the beginning of Trump's second term, the withdrawals from international organizations are set to be initiated again.
What are the implications of the U.S. withdrawing from the Paris Agreement for the second time? Looking ahead, if Trump continues with such “withdrawal” actions, what impact will it have on global governance and multilateralism? Let's hear the analysis from Martin Jacques, the Visiting Professor of Tsinghua University.
Trump desires to upend multilateralism
Martin Jacques: It's quite clear that Trump is the number one opponent, if you like, of the climate change consensus that has embrace much of the world. The consequences of this, I think, are very serious. We know that the rising temperatures will not be held at 1.5°C, which was the original agreement. It's going to be worse than that, and it's going to be worse than that very quickly, and it's going to keep rising. The effect of Trump's move will be to make the situation worse. And I think that it's an expression of Trump's mentality, but also his political desire to upend multilateralism, global consensus, global agreements in the name of the U.S. being the number one power in the world, the number one authority in the world, to which he would like everyone else to accept.
Well, we can already add to his withdraw from the Paris Agreement. He's also pulled America out of the WHO, the World Health Organization, which is another announcement he's made. This is so important an organization like WHO for global cooperation on health, and especially in terms of the developing world. But Trump has another agenda. Trump's agenda is an “America First” agenda, and I think that what Trump is about and we're going to see, we saw it in the first term, but in this term, we'll see it more clearly because he's in a much more powerful position.
This is a new global era marked by the assertion of American power. Of course, the fact of the matter is that America is actually significantly weaker than it's been at any period in the past, and Trump thinks he can rectify that. He'll fail in this, in my view, but nonetheless fail in the sense of America becoming the dominant power in the world, bar none.
The U.S. approach is isolationist
Martin Jacques: And I think it's all right saying these things now, you know, and he's a very effective, a new kind of politician in many ways, certainly as a political leader of the United States. But when it comes to the reality of the situation of pushing these agreements through, facing the problems in the global economy which are bound to develop, the new tensions that are bound to follow, then that's a different question, and then, you know, then he comes up against the reality of the situation.
Trump's position is so different from China's, in that China's approach to international relations has been to try to create, as wider consensus on issues as possible. Hence, it’s work with global South, hence with Belt and Road Initiative and the whole idea of Common Destiny for Mankind and so on. So while China approach is consensual, America's approach is assertive and isolationist.
Chief Producer: Yu Xiaona
Supervising Producer: Shi Shi
Editor: Li Yinong
Reporter: Yang Yulai
Video Editor: Cai Yutian Li Qun
New Media Coordination: Ding Qingyun, Zeng Tingfang, Lai Xi, Huang Daxun
Overseas Operations Supervising Producer: Huang Yanshu
Overseas Content Coordinator: Huang Zihao
Overseas Operations Editors: Zhuang Huan, Wu Wanjie, Long Lihua, Zhang Weitao
Produced by: Southern Finance Omnimedia Group
首页
微信公众号
证券之星APP
