“工作荒唐到，我写到这儿差点昏过去……”

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莱索托王国，一个坐落南非高原的赤贫山国，在特朗普政府施行的“对等关税”方针下被加征了高达50%的进口关税。

关于这个世界上最赤贫的国家之一，这是毁灭性的冲击。有分析师失望猜测称，工厂会封闭，工人会赋闲，“整个纺织职业将会消亡”。该国近一半的出口额或将因而消失。

莱索托既非经济对手，也非战略要挟，只因太穷了买不起美国出口产品，形成对美买卖顺差，就被征收了挨近最高上限的关税税率。

这个荒唐又悲痛的事例，被4月3日《大西洋月刊》的谈论文章引为佐证，文章中直抒己见指出，这个事例阐明美国当时的关税方针有多么荒唐，彻底是特朗普毫无逻辑的特性的延伸。

该文作者德里克·汤普森（Derek Thompson）挖苦地点评道，要了解美国当时买卖方针，最合适的一句话是：“没人知道是怎么回事”（Nobody knows anything）。

The most fitting analysis for this moment, however, does not come from an economist or a financial researcher. It comes from the screenwriter William Goldman, who pithily captured his industry's lack of foresight with one of the most famous aphorisms in Hollywood history: "Nobody knows anything."

汤普森尖利地指出，特朗普的关税方针“与其说是经济理论，不如说是达达主义艺术（Dadaist）——用荒唐的方法质疑专业存在的必要性”。

各方对关税方针的解说自相对立：买卖参谋彼得·纳瓦罗（Peter Navarro）宣称这是“美国史上最大增税方案”，科技界亲特朗普人士帕尔默·拉奇（Palmer Luckey）宣称其终极方针是“通过迫使各国在惩罚性关税面前撤销现有买卖壁垒，终究完成彻底自由买卖”，而经济参谋斯蒂芬·米兰（Stephen Miran）则将其视为“通过美元价值降低和重振美国制造业工作，从头平衡美国与全球经济的联系”的雄伟方案。

但是，这三个方针——添加财政收入、康复自由买卖和调整全球经济——本便是彼此对立的。这进一步阐明这些关税没有一个一致连接的解说。

These three alleged goals — raising revenue, restoring free trade, and rejiggering the global economy — are incompatible with one another.

首要，添加财政收入与康复自由买卖彼此排挤：一项旨在自我消亡的纳税方针不或许长时间充分国库；其次，自由买卖建议与制造业复兴方针相违背：若想完成再工业化，就不或许持续依靠最初导致铁锈地带（美国东北部-五大湖邻近惨淡的工业区）式微的全球买卖放任方针。自由买卖要么是需求保卫的经济乐园，要么便是亟待炸毁的咒骂性政治次序。

The first and second explanations are mutually exclusive: The state can't raise tax revenue in the long run with a levy that is designed to disappear. The second and third explanations are mutually exclusive too: You can't reindustrialize by doubling down on the global-trade free-for-all that supposedly immiserated the Rust Belt in the first place. Either global free trade is an economic Valhalla worth fighting for, or it's the cursed political order that we're trying desperately to destroy.

更荒唐的在于关税的核算方法：所谓“对等”关税，既非镜像仿制他国关税水平，亦非平衡双边买卖流量，而是一套共同的算法。特朗普团队好像是根据美国与某国的买卖逆差除以从该国进口的总额，再通过大略调整，得出新关税。

The Trump team seems to have calculated each penalty by dividing the US trade deficit with a given country by how much the US imports from it and then doing a rough adjustment.

在这种核算方法下，无人居住的赫德岛（Heard island）、麦克唐纳群岛（McDonald Islands）被加征10%关税，而驻有美英戎行的英属印度洋领地（British Indian Ocean Territory）相同上榜。

以莱索托为例，该国对美出口价值2.37亿美元的钻石与其他产品，一起，因为该国赤贫，无力购买大多数美国出口产品，形成美国对莱索托的买卖逆差。逆差与进口额之比畸高，经公式运算后得出50%的新关税。

莱索托马塞卢，女人在街头制造传统巴索托帽并出售图源：VCG

汤普森挖苦道：“以为美国有必要对莱索托宝石纳税才能在俄亥俄州添加钢铁工作岗位的观念荒唐备至，荒唐到我写到这句话时都差点晕厥曩昔。”

The Trump team seems to have calculated each penalty by dividing the US trade deficit with a given country by how much the US imports from it and then doing a rough adjustment. Because Lesotho's citizens are too poor to afford most US exports, while the US imports $237 million in diamonds and other goods from the small landlocked nation, we have reserved close to our highest-possible tariff rate for one of the world's poorest countries. The notion that taxing Lesotho gemstones is necessary for the US to add steel jobs in Ohio is so absurd that I briefly lost consciousness in the middle of writing this sentence.

这暴露了特朗普关税方针的实质——它无关经济理性，而是“特朗普品格在整个政府内部的搬运延伸”（all-of-government metastasis of Trump's personality）。

If the tariffs violate their own internal logic and basic common sense, what are they? Most likely, they represent little more than the all-of-government metastasis of Trump's personality, which sees grandiosity as a strategy to pull counterparties to the negotiating table and strike deals that benefit Trump's ego or wallet.

正如特朗普在《买卖的艺术》中坦承的个人哲学：“瞄准极高方针，不断施压，直到取得我想要的。”这种思想，使得关税成为权利和杠杆的无限游戏。

This personality style is clear, and it has been clearly stated, even if its application to geopolitics is confounding to observe. "My style of deal-making is pretty simple and straightforward," Trump writes in The Art of the Deal. "I aim very high, and then l just keep pushing and pushing and pushing to get what I'm after. Sometimes I settle for less than I sought but in most cases I still end up with what I want."

特朗普支持者将这种“紊乱战术”美化为“打破四分五裂的系统”，但汤普森尖利指出其价值：经济增加需求正和与长时间规划（positive-sum and long-term-oriented），而特朗普的特性始终是零和且急于求成的（zero-sum and urgent）。

“当咱们的买卖方针好像每月都或许因特朗普亲身与全球各国商洽而改动时，一家纺织公司真的会想在美国开设工厂吗？在‘解放日关税’引发全球兜售，导致世界阑珊时，制造业企业真的应该出资贵重的工厂扩建吗？”

Trump's defenders praise the president for using chaos to shake up broken systems. But they fail to see the downside of uncertainty.

ls a textile company really supposed to open a US factory when our trade policy seems likely to change every month as Trump personally negotiates with the entire planet? Are manufacturing firms really supposed to invest in expensive factory expansions when the Liberation Day tariffs caused a global sell-off that signals an international downturn? Trump's personality is, and has always been, zero-sum and urgent, craving chaos, but economic growth is positive-sum and long-term-oriented, craving certainty for its largest investments.

莱索托的高额关税，终究照见的是一个被特性控制的买卖系统。当财政部长的答复是“咱们只能拭目而待”，当经济方针成为达达主义艺术品，当“要挟、杠杆、退让、重复”（threat, leverage, concession, repeat）的剧本在整个社会和世界买卖中演出，正如汤普森所说：“最可怕的不是关税数字，而是数字背面的信息——咱们都活在这位总统的脑子里，而那里，没人知道是怎么回事。”

The scariest thing about the Trump tariffs isn't the numbers, but the underlying message. We're all living inside the president's head, and nobody knows anything.

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