取消特朗普关税是“毁了”美国还是减税？
Trump Warns of Doom if Tariffs Are Ruled Illegal. Others See a Tax Cut.

President Trump has warned that the cancellation of his wide-ranging tariffs, a decision now before the Supreme Court, would “literally destroy” the United States and turn it into a “third-world nation.”
特朗普总统警告称，取消他推出的广泛关税——是否取消将由最高法院做出裁决——将“彻底毁了”美国，使其沦为“第三世界国家”。

To some economists and analysts, a court ruling throwing out many of Mr. Trump’s tariffs could instead resemble something like a corporate tax cut, traditionally a desirable policy outcome among Republicans. That is because many American companies have had to shoulder at least some of the costs caused by the taxes on imported goods, thinning profit margins and reducing spending on other business expenses.
但在一些经济学家和分析师看来，若法院裁定废除特朗普的多项关税，其效果可能更接近企业减税，而减税传统上是共和党所青睐的政策结果。这是因为，众多美国企业不得不承担进口商品征税带来的部分成本，这压缩了它们的利润率，也减少了在其他业务开支上的投入。

A legal ruling ending many of Mr. Trump’s current tariffs would not only free firms from that tax burden but also potentially remit tens of billions of dollars in tariff revenue back to them.
若司法裁决终结特朗普目前的多项关税，不仅能让企业摆脱这一税负压力，还有可能将数百亿美元的关税收入返还给企业。

“That would be a boost to the economy,” said Alex Durante, a senior economist at the Tax Foundation, a think tank that generally favors lower taxes. “You would be doing a tax cut. You would be undoing a tax increase, and you would provide relief to lots of businesses and consumers.”
“这将对经济起到提振作用，”倾向减税的智库税收基金会高级经济学家亚历克斯·杜兰特表示。“这相当于实施减税，撤销增税，为众多企业和消费者减轻负担。”

Who actually bears the burden of paying Mr. Trump’s tariffs — and, therefore, who would benefit from their potential end — has been a central economic debate this year. Mr. Trump and members of his administration insist that the tariffs force companies overseas to cut the prices they charge American firms, meaning the tax effectively applies to foreign firms, not American ones.
谁真正承担了特朗普关税的成本，进而谁会因关税可能的取消而受益，这是今年的核心经济争论焦点。特朗普及其政府成员坚称，关税迫使海外企业降低对美企业的报价，这意味着该税收实际上针对的是外国企业，而非美国企业。

But economists broadly agree that American businesses and consumers primarily pay for tariffs. The real question, to them, is the extent to which American businesses absorb the higher costs created by tariffs or pass them along to consumers in the form of higher prices.
但经济学家普遍认为，美国企业和消费者才是关税的主要承担者。对他们而言，真正的问题在于：美国企业会在多大程度上吸收关税带来的成本上涨，又会在多大程度上将其以涨价形式转嫁给消费者。

So far, companies are doing both. Analysts expect that companies will, over time, shift more of the cost of tariffs onto consumers by raising prices. Evidence of price increases caused by tariffs has started to show up in monthly inflation reports, and some companies have said in earnings reports and investor calls that tariffs have squeezed their profit margins. General Motors, for example, has projected that the tariffs will cost the company $5 billion this year.
企业目前的情况是两者兼而有之。分析师预计，随着时间推移，企业会通过涨价将更多关税成本转嫁给消费者。月度通胀报告中已开始显现关税导致的价格上涨迹象，一些企业也在财报和投资者电话会议中表示，关税挤压了它们的利润率。例如，通用汽车预计今年关税将给公司带来50亿美元损失。

“It’s a mix of both,” said Frances Donald, the chief economist at the Royal Bank of Canada. “Some companies have to pass the costs on, and some see cost reductions on their side. That muddle-through type of scenario is probably the best one we could hope for.”
“两种情况都有，”加拿大皇家银行首席经济学家弗朗西斯·唐纳德说，“部分企业不得不转嫁成本，部分企业能在自身层面降低成本。这种勉强维持的局面可能是我们能期待的最佳结果。”

That companies have so far shielded consumers from the full cost of the tariffs may, at first blush, seem to spare the economy from negative consequences of the trade policy upheaval. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested as much in an interview with Bloomberg last month.
企业迄今尚未让消费者完全承担关税成本，乍看之下似乎让经济免受贸易政策动荡的负面影响。财政部长贝森特上月接受彭博社采访时也表达了类似观点。

“I also think there are probably a lot of corporate margins that got very fat during Covid, and now we’re seeing a return to normal pre-Covid margins,” he said. (The Trump administration has also said lower corporate taxes boost the economy overall, passing a tax cut this summer that is expected to return cash to many companies and bolster their profits in the short run.)
“我还认为，许多企业的利润率在新冠疫情期间变得非常丰厚，现在正回归疫情前的正常水平，”他说。（特朗普政府同样宣称，降低企业税能整体提振经济，今年夏天政府通过了一项减税法案，预计将为许多企业回流资金，并在短期内提振其利润。）

Indeed, textbook economics — and longtime conservative orthodoxy — states that there are real economic costs created by higher taxes on, and lower profit margins for, companies. To keep other costs down, businesses may hold off on hiring workers or offering employees higher wages. They may also pull back on new investments, which can reduce the firms’ productivity over time and therefore hurt growth and wages.
实际上，教科书上的经济学理论——以及长期以来的保守派正统观点——都认为，对企业加税和压低企业利润率会产生真实的经济成本。为压低其他成本，企业可能会暂停招聘员工或不给员工涨薪；它们也可能缩减新投资，而这会逐渐降低企业生产率，进而损害经济增长和薪资水平。

There are early signs that companies are starting to make those kinds of adjustments, said Katheryn Russ, an economics professor at the University of California, Davis. The American labor market has started to stall since Mr. Trump’s tariffs went into effect, with the latest jobs report showing that the economy added only 22,000 jobs in August.
加州大学戴维斯分校经济学教授凯瑟琳·拉斯表示，已有初步迹象显示企业开始做出这类调整。自特朗普关税生效以来，美国劳动力市场已开始陷入停滞——最新就业报告显示，8月美国经济仅新增2.2万个就业岗位。

“We see evidence that companies are passing through the cost to consumers, but not fully,” Ms. Russ said. “We see some evidence they’re starting to trim employment. We see some evidence they’re starting to pull back on investment or scale back their operations.”
“我们看到证据表明，企业在将成本转嫁给消费者，但并未完全转嫁，”拉斯说。“我们还看到一些迹象，表明企业开始裁员，开始缩减投资或收缩业务规模。”

A Supreme Court ruling that affirms earlier decisions against many of Mr. Trump’s tariffs could help reverse some of those effects, but potentially only temporarily. Mr. Trump has other tariff authorities that he could try to invoke to replicate many of the trade barriers now in place.
若最高法院裁定支持此前反对特朗普多项关税的判决，可能会逆转部分上述影响，但或许只是暂时的。特朗普仍拥有其他关税措施裁量权，他可能会试图动用这些权力，重建目前已实施的诸多贸易壁垒。

Companies may continue to hold off on major hiring or investment decisions until the trade policy landscape finally settles. The end of the current tariffs could also unsettle bond markets, where investors have started to assume that the revenue generated by the import taxes will help narrow the annual budget deficit.
在贸易政策格局最终稳定之前，企业可能会继续推迟重大招聘或投资决策。当前关税的终止还可能扰乱债券市场——投资者已开始预期进口税带来的收入将有助于缩小年度预算赤字。

Still, should the court order the Trump administration to return already-collected tariff revenue to companies, those funds would amount to a windfall. What firms might do with that returned money, functionally a tax refund, is unclear. It is unlikely that companies would try to return the funds to consumers by cutting prices. But the money would at the very least bolster corporate coffers.
不过，若法院下令特朗普政府将已征收的关税收入返还企业，这笔资金将成为一笔意外之财。企业会如何使用这笔实质上相当于退税的资金，目前尚不清楚。它们不太可能通过降价将资金返还给消费者，但这笔钱至少能充实企业的资金储备。

“You could envision a corporate strategy, because this is going to be so highly publicized, of saying, ‘We just got a bunch of tariff refunds; we’re having a tariff refund sale,’” said Scott Lincicome, the vice president for general economics at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. “But companies don’t like to lower prices once they’ve gone up.”
“人们也许会设想这样一种企业策略——既然这件事会被广泛报道，企业可能会说‘我们刚拿到一大笔关税退款，现在搞个退税促销，’”自由意志主义智库卡托研究所负责总体经济事务的副所长斯科特·林肯科姆说。“但企业一旦涨价，往往就不愿再降价了。”