中美贸易战如何影响美国消费者？

WASHINGTON — The administration’s trade fight with China may soon be fought in the aisles of Walmart, Best Buy, REI and Costco.

华盛顿——特朗普政府与中国的贸易战可能很快将在沃尔玛(Walmart)、百思买(Best Buy)、REI和好市多(Costco)的通道里展开。

President Trump’s latest round of proposed tariffs on Chinese goods would finally pull American consumers into an escalating trade war that they have, thus far, mostly watched from a distance.

特朗普总统对中国商品征收的最近一轮关税，终将把迄今还是远远观望的美国消费者拖进一场不断升级的贸易战。

Administration officials took pains in their first batch of Chinese tariffs to largely shield consumers from seeing immediate price increases on products they buy. The $34 billion round imposed on July 6 focused largely on goods that businesses purchase, which do not typically appear on store shelves, such as aircraft parts and industrial machinery.

政府官员为设计第一批针对中国产品的关税费劲了心机，主要是避免让消费者立即看到他们购买的产品出现价格上涨。7月6日对340亿美元产品征收的这轮关税主要集中在企业购买的商品之内，如飞机零件和工业机械，它们通常不会出现在商店货架上。

But the list of $200 billion worth of products administration officials proposed hitting with tariffs on Tuesday would push up prices at many American retailers. The tariffs would be lower than the previous round — 10 percent instead of 25 percent — and they still mostly avoid apparel, one of the most visible product lines that Americans buy heavily from China. But they include electronics, food, tools, housewares and a wide range of other consumer goods. The tariffs would not go into effect for several months and may not happen at all if the United States and China are able to resolve their differences.

但是，周二政府官员建议征收关税的价值2000亿美元的产品清单将令许多美国零售商提高价格。这一次关税增加10%而不是25%，低于上一轮，而且仍然大体上避免了服装类产品，这是美国人最显著大量购买的中国产品之一。但这批商品包括电子产品、食品、工具、家居用品和各种其他消费品。这批关税不会在几个月内生效，如果美国和中国能够解决分歧，它可能根本不会发生。

Economists say that expansion will drive inflation higher and erode Americans’ purchasing power, potentially hurting economic growth. Inflation is already rising, the Labor Department reported on Thursday, driven largely by energy prices. The Consumer Price Index rose 2.9 percent in June from a year ago, its highest rate of the last six years.

经济学家表示，扩大关税范围将令通胀走高，并削弱美国人的购买力，可能会损害经济增长。劳工部于周四报告，目前通货膨胀率已经上升，主要受能源价格上涨推动。6月份消费物价指数较去年同期上涨2.9%，为过去六年来的最高水平。

The rate is lower — 2.3 percent — for core inflation, which excludes energy and food prices. Home furnishing prices have barely risen at all over the last year, and prices for information technology hardware and services have fallen by 2.3 percent in that time.

核心通胀率(不包括能源和食品价格)则降低了2.3%。去年全年，家居用品价格几乎没有上涨，信息技术硬件和服务的价格下降了2.3%。

But retail groups say a prolonged trade war could accelerate price increases on a wide range of consumer goods, giving Americans sticker shock on some of their favorite items.

但零售业组织表示，长期贸易战可能加速各种消费品的价格上涨，美国人会对他们喜爱的一些商品的价格感到震惊。

“You keep adding tariffs upon tariffs,” said Alex Boian, vice president for government affairs at the Outdoor Industry Association, whose members include such recreation titans as North Face and Patagonia, “and it really is difficult to see a way that this does not hit retail prices.”

“关税一层层不断增加，”户外行业协会(Outdoor Industry Association)负责政府事务的副会长亚历克斯·博伊安(Alex Boian)说，该协会成员包括北面(North Face)和巴塔哥尼亚(Patagonia)这样的休闲娱乐产品巨头，“很难看到不影响零售价的出路。”

The latest tariff list includes several mainstay products of the outdoor industry, such as travel bags, backpacks and the knit fabric used in fleece vests. It also includes dog collars, sledgehammers, saw blades, baseball mitts, ski gloves, toilet paper, art supplies, ceramic tiles, windshield glass and antiques that are more than 100 years old.

最新的关税清单包括户外行业的几种重要产品，如旅行包、背包和羊毛马甲中使用的针织面料。该清单还包括狗项圈、大锤、锯条、棒球手套、滑雪手套、卫生纸、美术用品、瓷砖、挡风玻璃和超过100年历史的古董。

There are also seemingly random — and likely not household — products on the list, like bovine semen and horsehair.

名单上还有一些产品似乎是随意添加上去的——不像是家居用品——如牛精液和马毛。

More than 1,000 of the 6,000 items on the list are chemicals, according to an analysis by Panjiva. Nearly 1,000 more are food products, including vegetables like cabbage, kale, carrots and beets and hundreds of types of fish. Many of those fish, such as Alaskan pollock, are caught elsewhere and processed in China.

根据磐聚网(Panjiva)的分析，名单上的6000件物品中有1000多件是化学品。还有近1000种食品，包括卷心菜、羽衣甘蓝、胡萝卜和甜菜等蔬菜，以及数百种鱼类。阿拉斯加鳕鱼等许多鱼类是在世界其他地方捕获，在中国进行加工。

In dollar terms, the items most likely to rattle American consumers are computers and couches. The Panjiva analysis shows that $50 billion worth of goods subject to tariffs are electronics, including $17.4 billion in PC components and $5.2 billion in desktop computers. Nearly $30 billion worth of the products are furniture. In addition, the administration will soon begin imposing 25 percent tariffs on more than $3 billion worth of semiconductors, potentially driving up computer prices even more.

从价格角度，最有可能惊动美国消费者的是电脑和沙发。磐聚网的分析显示，价值500亿美元受关税影响的商品是电子产品，其中包括174亿美元的电脑组件和52亿美元的台式电脑，还有价值近300亿美元的产品是家具。此外，政府将很快开始对超过30亿美元的半导体征收25%的关税，这可能会进一步提高计算机价格。

Buying a new PC or sofa is a major purchase for most Americans, and a 10 percent tariff could force many consumers to seek out cheaper brands or delay the purchase. It seems unlikely that stores will absorb the import taxes by accepting lower profit margins. But American consumers might not have much choice but to pay them: For nearly $100 billion of the products targeted, Panjiva estimates, China supplies more than half of the imports that Americans buy.

购买新电脑或沙发对于大多数美国人来说是一大笔开支，10%的关税可能迫使许多消费者寻找更便宜的品牌或推迟购买。商店似乎不太可能通过降低利润来吸收进口税。但美国消费者可能别无选择，只能付钱给他们：据磐聚网估计，在近1000亿美元的关税目标产品中，中国供应的产品占美国人购买量的一半以上。

As the tariffs expand to cover roughly half of all Chinese goods exported to the United States, consumers will start seeing price increases on store shelves, said Mary Lovely, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

彼得森国际经济研究所(Peterson Institute for International Economics)高级研究员玛丽·洛夫利(Mary Lovely)表示，随着关税扩大到约一半出口到美国的中国商品，消费者将开始在商店货架上看到价格上涨。

“It is possible that they can scoot around some of the effect on consumers, but it gets increasingly difficult,” she said. “It also gets further and further away from the stated rationale of the tariffs, which is to hit high-tech products.”

“它们可能会对消费者产生一些影响，但局面会变得越来越困难，”她说。“它也越来越远离关税所宣称的理由，即打击中国的高科技产品。”

The National Retail Federation said in a statement on Tuesday that the threat posed by tariffs to the American economy “is less about a question of ‘if’ and more about ‘when’ and ‘how bad.’”

全美零售联合会(The National Retail Federation)于周二在一份声明中表示，关税对美国经济构成的威胁“不是关于‘会否’的问题，而是关于‘何时’和‘有多糟’的问题。”

The trade group said that the sheer scope of the tariffs “make it inconceivable that American consumers will dodge this tax increase as prices of everyday products will be forced to rise.” 该贸易团体表示，关税的范围之大“使美国消费者无法回避这种增税，因为日常产品的价格将被迫上涨。”

Anyone who has tried to buy a washing machine this year knows how fast tariffs can translate to price hikes. The Trump administration imposed tariffs on imported washing machines, of up to 50 percent, in January. Since then, laundry equipment prices have jumped 17 percent, according to Labor Department data.

任何今年想要购买洗衣机的人都知道，关税可以快速转化为价格上涨。特朗普政府在1月份对进口洗衣机征收高达50%的关税。根据劳工部的数据，从那时起，洗衣设备价格上涨了17%。

Economists warn that a batch of similar price spikes could complicate the Federal Reserve’s efforts to maintain a gradual pace of interest rate increases, by juicing inflation more than economists had expected. Rising prices would cut into Americans’ purchasing power, which has remained an engine of growth in the recovery from the great recession.

经济学家警告说，一批类似的价格飙升可能会给美联储维持逐步加息的努力制造困难，因为通胀率高于经济学家的预期。价格上涨将削弱美国人的购买力，而购买力仍然是经济从大衰退中复苏的增长引擎。

“Tariffs are just a real income hit to consumers,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist for Pantheon Macroeconomics. “There’s no question that these tariffs will dampen growth.”

“关税会给消费者带来真正的收入损失，”万神殿宏观经济(Pantheon Macroeconomics)首席经济学家伊恩·谢泼德森(Ian Shepherdson)表示，“毫无疑问，这些关税将抑制经济增长。”