关税最近是重要的政策建议和休闲对话的主题。

Goran Skosples是俄亥俄州卫斯理大学经济学副教授。

Tariffs have recently been the topic of both significant policy recommendations and casual conversations.

关税最近是重要的政策建议和休闲对话的主题。

One of the main stated reasons for tariff increases has been that we are running persistent trade deficits with other countries who are taking advantage of our country. An increase in tariffs would, as it is claimed, improve our trade balance by decreasing our imports.

关税增加的主要理由之一是，我们正在与利用我们国家的其他国家持续存在贸易赤字。据称，关税的增加将通过减少进口量来改善我们的贸易平衡。

It is clear that the United States is running a trade deficit vis-à-vis the rest of the world. It currently sits at about $900 billion, or about 3% of GDP.

显然，美国正在与世界其他地区进行贸易赤字。目前，它的价格约为9000亿美元，约占GDP的3％。

This means that we are consuming more goods and services (actually goods) than we produce. It is difficult to understand how other countries are taking advantage of the United States, as it has been claimed recently, if we can have higher consumption than we would be able to have if we did not have a trade deficit. In other words, a trade deficit allows us to live “beyond our means.”

这意味着我们要消费的商品和服务（实际上是商品）比生产的更多。正如最近所声称的那样，如果我们没有贸易赤字，我们的消费能力高于我们所能拥有的，那么很难理解其他国家如何利用美国。换句话说，贸易赤字使我们能够“超越自己的手段”。

Perhaps other countries are lending us the means and in the future, they will come to collect and then we will have to face the harsh truth of having lived beyond our means.

也许其他国家正在借给我们手段，将来，他们将来收集，然后我们将不得不面对生活在我们手段之外的苛刻真理。

This line of reasoning misses the other side of the coin. In the language of economics, the flow of goods and services (trade) is referred to as the current account. The other side of the coin is the flow of funds or the capital account.

这种推理线错过了硬币的另一侧。用经济学的语言，商品和服务的流（贸易）称为经常账户。硬币的另一面是资金或资本帐户的流动。

It is not that other countries are lending us the means which we then use to buy goods and services from these countries, but it is rather that we are selling them something on the other side of the coin.

并不是说其他​​国家正在借给我们从这些国家购买商品和服务的手段，而是我们在硬币的另一端向他们出售东西。

What we are selling are different assets such as stocks, bonds, real estate, etc. When we purchase more goods and services from other countries and send our dollars to them, they use those same dollars to purchase our assets.

我们销售的是不同的资产，例如股票，债券，房地产等。当我们从其他国家购买更多商品和服务并将我们的美元发送给它们时，他们会使用相同的美元购买我们的资产。

As it turns out, our deficit in good and services, or the current account, equals the sale of our assets, or the capital account. This is what is known as, albeit in a simplified version, the balance of payments. When we experience a larger trade deficit it is financed by a larger sale of assets.

事实证明，我们在良好和服务方面的赤字或经常帐户等于我们的资产出售或资本帐户。这就是所谓的，尽管在简化版本中，付款的余额。当我们遇到较大的贸易赤字时，它将通过更大的资产销售资助。

A common misunderstanding is to draw a parallel between the entire economy and an individual.

一个普遍的误解是在整个经济和个人之间达成平行。

If an individual enjoys larger consumption (equivalent to a trade deficit) and finances it by selling assets, that cannot be sustained as assets are limited and are eventually depleted. An individual cannot sensibly live “beyond her means” in perpetuity. But imagine that this individual is a skilled artisan creating world-renowned wicker baskets.

如果个人享有更大的消费（相当于贸易赤字），并通过出售资产来为其融资，那么由于资产是有限的，最终被耗尽的资产，这种资产就无法维持。一个人不能永久地“超越她的手段”。但是想象一下，这个人是一个熟练的工匠，创造了世界知名的柳条篮。

Every basket she weaves is technically her asset and she can sell it. In this situation, one would not consider her financing consumption by selling her baskets living “beyond her means.”

从技术上讲，她编织的每个篮子都是她的资产，她可以出售它。在这种情况下，人们不会通过出售“超越手段”的篮子来考虑她的融资消费。

She would only face a problem if she stopped weaving baskets and then she would have to reduce her consumption of goods and services. She would not be able to finance her consumption if she stopped creating new assets.

她只有停止编织篮子，然后她必须减少商品和服务的消费，她才会面临问题。如果她停止创建新资产，她将无法为自己的消费提供资金。

Is a persistent trade deficit really bad?

持续的贸易赤字真的很糟糕吗？

If we zoom out to the entire economy, if our stock of assets is fixed and we do not create new assets, we would not be able to keep selling our assets forever to finance consuming more goods and services than we produce, or, in other words, we would not be able to run a trade deficit.

如果我们将资产库存固定并且没有创造新的资产，那么我们将无法继续销售我们的资产来为消费更多的商品和服务提供比我们生产的更多的商品和服务，或者，换句话说，我们将无法经营贸易赤字。

However, we do create new assets all the time. One thing the United States is good at is innovation and creating businesses. What we miss by focusing on the trade of goods and services, where we are running deficit, is the sale of something we are very skilled at producing and selling, and that is our innovation and business creation, where we are running an equivalent surplus.

但是，我们确实一直在创建新资产。美国擅长的一件事是创新和创造企业。我们通过关注赤字的商品和服务的贸易而错过的是我们非常擅长生产和销售的东西，这就是我们的创新和创造商业创造，我们正在经营等效的盈余。

In his "The Wealth of Nations," Adam Smith set out to find why some countries are wealthy and some countries are not. One of his main conclusions was that when a country specializes in something it is good at and trades with others, it does better than when it tries to do everything itself.

亚当·史密斯（Adam Smith）在他的“国际财富”中着手寻找为什么某些国家富有而某些国家不属于的国家。他的主要结论之一是，当一个国家专门从事擅长的事物并与他人进行交易时，它比试图做所有事情本身的事情要好。

Since we are very good at innovation and business creation, specializing in this makes us better off than would be otherwise. The fact that we are able to run persistent trade deficits is not a sign of weakness, but rather a sign that we are good at creating assets that are attractive to other countries.

由于我们非常擅长创新和创造商业，因此专门研究这使我们变得更好。我们能够持续贸易赤字的事实并不是弱点的迹象，而是一个迹象表明我们善于创造对其他国家有吸引力的资产。

America Inc. is something that we specialize in and is highly desirable around the world.

美国公司是我们专门研究的事情，并且在世界范围内是非常可取的。

Increasing tariffs may be an attempt to “solve” the problem of persistent trade deficits. That is, if you believe that our trade deficit is a problem that needs solving.

提高关税可能是“解决”持续贸易赤字问题的尝试。也就是说，如果您认为我们的贸易赤字是需要解决的问题。