特朗普的经济以前对新英格兰有利，现在人们的担忧很大
【中美创新时报2024 年 11 月 10 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）特朗普正在重新推出他的第一任期剧本——减税、放松管制、严格限制移民以及大幅提高关税。这一战略对马萨诸塞州和整个新英格兰的经济都充满了潜在风险。《波士顿环球报》专栏作家Larry Edelman对此作了下述详细报道。
唐纳德·特朗普上次入主白宫时，马萨诸塞州经济表现良好。
在他担任总统的头三年——在 2020 年 COVID 颠覆一切之前——该州的失业率降至接近历史最低水平，典型的马萨诸塞州家庭收入激增 21%。没有人抱怨通货膨胀。
那是过去。但现在呢？
特朗普正在重新推出他的第一任期剧本——减税、放松管制、严格限制移民以及大幅提高关税。这一战略对马萨诸塞州和整个新英格兰的经济都充满了潜在风险。
这是因为，正如商界领袖和经济学家警告的那样，世界与八年前大不相同。
“2016 年的问题是大衰退之后经济低迷，”马萨诸塞大学阿默斯特分校唐纳休研究所经济与公共政策研究主任马克·梅尔尼克 (Mark Melnik) 表示。“这不是我们 2024 年的经济状况。”
最大的担忧是：在特朗普减税政策的推动下，经济可能会过热，使得美联储在通胀回落的情况下将贷款利率恢复到更正常水平的计划变得复杂。这将对消费者和当地的关键行业产生深远影响，包括住房、生物技术和医院、科技初创企业、高等教育和旅游业。特朗普在移民问题上的强硬立场可能会阻碍该州本已不温不火的劳动力增长，而他对气候变化的否认预示着该地区新兴的清洁技术行业将面临艰难时期。
这位当选总统将接手美国经济，而美国经济正处于扩张的第四年，从 2020 年短暂的疫情衰退中迅速反弹。自 2022 年初以来，季度国内生产总值平均增长 2.3%。失业率虽然今年有所上升，但按历史标准来看仍处于较低水平。2021-2022 年飙升的通货膨胀已明显缓和。股市不断创下历史新高。
相比之下，特朗普 2017 年 1 月上任时，在 2008 年金融危机后漫长的“无就业复苏”之后，经济仍在积聚力量。简而言之，当时的增长空间比现在更大。
他的经济议程主要是要点，很少有具体细节，但他的总体目标很明确，指出了当地企业的潜在风险和回报。
正如他在第一任期所做的那样，特朗普将寻求让经济“火爆”，通过延长明年到期的 2017 年减税政策并将企业税率从 21% 降至 15%（巴拉克·奥巴马离任时为 35%）来推动经济增长。他将通过取消政府对企业的限制、促进石油和天然气生产以降低价格来增强财政刺激。
虽然火爆的经济会创造就业机会并提高收入，但也有可能重新引发通胀，这正是美联储过去两年一直在努力解决的问题，也是导致卡玛拉·哈里斯败选的关键因素。对于在高昂住房成本重压下苦苦挣扎的当地经济来说，这可能是灾难性的，因为建筑贷款和抵押贷款仍将高得令人望而却步。
“包括我在内的经济学家都担心特朗普会引发通胀，”波士顿大学专门研究住房的副教授亚当·古伦说。“通胀上升多少，利率就会上升。”
由于投资者预期特朗普执政下经济将更加强劲，利率已经上涨。
劳动力也令人担忧。特朗普承诺驱逐数百万非法入境者，这可能会让许多雇主人手不足，尤其是在零售、酒店和旅游、医疗保健和社会服务以及住房建设等低工资行业。
麻省大学经济学家梅尔尼克表示，自 1990 年以来，该州劳动力增长的 80% 来自外国出生的工人，他们弥补了退休和移民到其他州造成的损失。“如果通货膨胀是我们最大的问题，那么减少劳动力资源并不能解决这个问题，”他说。
严格的移民限制还可能损害生命科学、科技和金融等高薪行业，这些行业吸引了最优秀、最聪明的外国工人。在总统第一任期内对高等教育持敌视态度的情况下，当地学院和大学可能会面临国际学生人数下降以及联邦资金减少的困境。
特朗普和他的副总统候选人 JD Vance 提议瞄准大多数学院和大学所依赖的联邦资金。他们表示，他们将利用这些资金作为筹码，寻求取代大学认证机构，并压制整个行业的多样性、公平性和包容性努力。
麻省大学系统校长马蒂·米汉 (Marty Meehan) 表示，虽然目前尚不清楚特朗普是否会在这些方面贯彻落实，但大学领导们担心资金威胁以及可能影响国际学生和教职员工的移民政策。
“这是一个令人担忧的问题，坦率地说，在特朗普第一届政府执政后，我们花了一段时间才让国际学生的数量恢复正常，”米汉说。
与此同时，特朗普对关税的关注可能会给消费者和企业带来更高的成本，尽管它试图鼓励美国公司在国内生产更多产品。他的强硬关税言论有多少只是谈判策略，还有待观察。
经济学家表示，严格的关税制度将迫使消费者为食品、服装、消费电子产品和汽车支付更多费用，而美国大量进口这些产品。
波士顿的制鞋业正警惕地关注特朗普的关税承诺。该行业已经因 2018 年生效的关税而感到痛苦。现在几乎所有的鞋类制造都在海外进行。即使是在新英格兰拥有多家工厂的新百伦，其大部分鞋子也依赖进口。鞋业认为，提高关税将适得其反，因为会推高美国消费者的价格。
特朗普对进口商品征收关税的广泛扩大可能会损害依赖海外供应商的公司，例如在线家具零售商 Wayfair。早在 2019 年，当特朗普将部分中国商品的关税提高到 25% 时，Wayfair 就表示，客户减少了，购买活动也放缓了。
这一次，这家总部位于波士顿的公司的高管表示，他们更愿意转向替代供应商，而且他们的更多供应商已将制造业务转移到中国以外。
马萨诸塞州和整个地区的企业将受到其产品中使用的关键部件成本上涨的打击。当地的主要进口产品包括对生命科学和医疗保健行业至关重要的医疗设备和药品以及工业机械。
生物技术和医院的领导者还有其他担忧。
杰里米·莱文 (Jeremy Levin) 是总部位于纽约的 Ovid Therapeutics 公司的首席执行官，该公司在波士顿设有实验室。他在共和党第一任期内对特朗普提出了严厉批评，并公开警告不要在批准新冠疫苗时走科学捷径。莱文支持哈里斯。
尽管如此，他表示，尽管当选总统批评药价过高，但他谨慎乐观地认为特朗普会支持制药业。他说，特朗普提议对创新技术和投资初创企业的人减税，莱文对此表示赞同。
然而，特朗普暗示，直言不讳的疫苗怀疑论者罗伯特·F·肯尼迪 (Robert F. Kennedy Jr.) 可能会在卫生与公众服务部或其任何机构（包括食品和药物管理局）中扮演重要角色，莱文对此感到震惊。
在竞选过程中，特朗普在讨论第二届政府的医疗保健议程时含糊其辞。但他或他在国会的一些支持者有时呼吁取代《平价医疗法案》，对堕胎实施更广泛的限制，并削减医疗补助预算。
虽然目前尚不清楚特朗普是否会推行这些计划，但马萨诸塞州卫生与医院协会主席史蒂夫·沃尔什表示，许多医疗保健行业人士对进一步动荡的前景感到担忧，尤其是在已经因疫情、Steward Health Care 破产以及近年来多家医院关闭而疲软的医院行业。
金融业的选举后情绪截然不同，许多人对特朗普的胜利表示欢迎。
周三，华尔街创下了选举日后历史上最大的涨幅，反映出人们对特朗普有效促进增长的能力充满信心。
曾在特朗普政府期间担任经济顾问委员会主席的凯文·哈塞特在选举前接受 CNBC 采访时表示：“如果特朗普总统上任，将会出现像第一任期一样的供应侧繁荣。”
银行股尤其飙升，因为人们希望拜登政府领导下该行业面临的严格监管环境将大大放松。特别是，银行合并在过去几年中面临着严格的审查，许多交易被推迟了数月，有些（例如道富银行拟议的布朗兄弟哈里曼收购案）被彻底取消。许多人认为，审查使得首席执行官们在考虑交易时更加谨慎。现在，这种观点将会改变。
“人们将更愿意允许银行合并，”投资银行 Keefe, Bruyette & Woods 的美国银行研究主管 Chris McGratty 表示。“我不认为这会是狂野西部。我认为这将是明智的交易。”
自 2022 年利率跃升以来，马萨诸塞州和美国其他地区的初创企业经济都因风险投资支持减少而受到影响。如果特朗普的举措推迟了美联储降息，这种痛苦可能会持续下去。
从聚变能到量子计算等各个领域的生命科学和科技初创公司仍然是当地科技领域的强项。它们的发展得益于该地区众多大学的研究成果以及拜登政府对科学和技术的加大支持。
波士顿初创企业加速器 MassChallenge 的首席执行官 Cait Brumme 表示：“特朗普是否会继续支持大规模的科学和技术投资，这还是一个悬而未决的问题。” “总的来说，这些计划起到了巨大的推动作用。”
预计特朗普还将缩减科技反垄断执法力度，为更多收购扫清道路。短期内，这可能会刺激初创企业经济，因为收购资金将被重新用于支持新公司。
研究这一问题的波士顿学院金融学教授托马斯·切曼努尔表示：“加强反垄断执法的长期影响可能对初创企业有利，因为它会鼓励科技行业更激烈的竞争。”
预计新一届政府将试图阻止联邦政府为气候行动拨付的未动用资金，取消减少碳排放的规定，并扩大石油和天然气产量，从而显著减缓向清洁能源的过渡。分析师表示，即使在新政策颁布之前，恐惧和不确定性也可能扼杀对新兴清洁能源和清洁技术行业的支持，这些行业面临着来自中国和欧洲竞争对手的激烈竞争。
总统影响经济的权力经常被夸大。除了大规模减税计划外，特朗普在其任期头三年的经济强劲表现可能比他应得的要好。而乔·拜登被不公平地归咎于通货膨胀，而通货膨胀与疫情对供应链的破坏以及俄罗斯入侵乌克兰引发的能源价格飙升的关系远比他的刺激支出要大。
但特朗普正在考虑采取一些非常激进的行动。他可以单方面征收一些关税和移民限制。由于共和党准备控制众议院和参议院，任何需要国会批准的提案，包括税收提案，都有很大的机会成为法律。
对于整个新英格兰地区焦虑的企业来说，等待开始了。
《波士顿环球报》的 Andrew Brinker、Hilary Burns、Jon Chesto、Diti Kohli、Aaron Pressman、Jonathan Saltzman 和 Robert Weisman 为本文提供了报道。
题图：纽约证券交易所的地板上展示了一顶特朗普的帽子。Michael Nagle/Bloomberg
附原英文报道：
Trump’s economy was good for New England before. Now there are big concerns.
By Larry Edelman Globe Columnist,Updated November 9, 2024
A Trump hat was displayed on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.Michael Nagle/Bloomberg
The Massachusetts economy had a good run when Donald Trump was last in the White House.
During his first three years as president — before COVID upended everything in 2020 — unemployment in the state fell to near record lows, and the typical Massachusetts family saw its income surge 21 percent. No one was complaining about inflation.
That was then. But what about now?
Trump is dusting off his first-term playbook — tax cuts, deregulation, sharp curbs on immigration, and steep increases to tariffs. It’s a strategy fraught with potential risks for the economy in Massachusetts and throughout New England.
That’s because, as business leaders and economists warn, the world is a lot different than it was eight years ago.
“The problem of 2016 was the sluggish economy after the Great Recession,” said Mark Melnik, director of economic and public policy research at the Donahue Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “That’s not the economy we have in 2024.”
The biggest concern: Fueled by Trump’s tax cuts, the economy could overheat, complicating the Federal Reserve’s plan to return lending rates to more normal levels now that inflation has retreated. That would have sweeping ramifications for consumers and key local industries including housing, biotech and hospitals, tech startups, higher education, and tourism. Trump’s hard line on immigration could hinder the already tepid growth in the state’s labor force, while his climate change denialism is a harbinger of tough times for the region’s emerging clean tech sector.
The president-elect will inherit an economy in the fourth year of an expansion that started with the rapid rebound from the brief pandemic recession of 2020. Growth in quarterly gross domestic product has averaged a solid 2.3 percent since the start of 2022. The jobless rate remains low by historic norms even as it has crept up this year. Inflation, which spiked in 2021-2022, has significantly moderated. The stock market has been hitting one record high after another.
By comparison, when Trump took office in January 2017, the economy was still building steam after the long “jobless recovery” that followed the 2008 financial crisis. Simply put, there was more room to grow then than there is today.
His economic agenda is mostly bullet points, with few details fleshed out, but his broad goals are clear, and they point to potential risks and rewards for local businesses.
As he did in his first term, Trump will seek to run the economy “hot,” powering growth by extending his 2017 tax cuts that expire next year and reducing the corporate tax rate to 15 percent from 21 percent; it was 35 percent when Barack Obama left office. He would augment that fiscal boost by removing government constraints on businesses, and promoting oil and gas production to lower prices.
While a hot economy would generate jobs and raise incomes, there’s a danger it could also reignite inflation, the very problem the Fed spent the past two years battling and which was instrumental in Kamala Harris’s defeat. That could be disastrous for a local economy struggling under the weight of high housing costs, as construction loans and mortgages would remain prohibitively expensive.
“Economists, including myself, are concerned that Trump will be inflationary,” said Adam Guren, an associate professor who specializes in housing at Boston University. “To the extent to which inflation rises, interest rates will rise.”
Rates have already climbed as investors anticipate a stronger economy under Trump.
The labor force is also a worry. Trump’s promise to deport millions of people who are in the country illegally could leave many employers short-handed, especially in low-wage industries such as retail, hospitality and tourism, health care and social services, and housing construction.
Melnik, the UMass economist, said 80 percent of the growth in the state’s labor force since 1990 has come from foreign-born workers who have offset losses from retirements and outmigration to other states. “If inflation is our biggest problem, reducing the labor pool doesn’t fix that,” he said.
Strict immigration limits could also hurt high-wage sectors like life sciences, tech, and finance, which attract the best and brightest foreign workers. Local colleges and universities could struggle with a falloff in international students, as well as a decline in federal funding under a president who was hostile to higher education in his first term.
Trump and his vice presidential pick, JD Vance, have proposed targeting the federal funding that most colleges and universities rely on. They have said they will use the funding as leverage as they look to replace university accrediting agencies, and suppress diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts across the sector.
While it’s not clear yet whether Trump will follow through on these fronts, university leaders worry about funding threats, as well as immigration policies that could impact international students and faculty members, said Marty Meehan, president of the UMass system.
“That is a concern, and candidly, it’s taken us a while to get the number of international students back up again after the first Trump administration,” Meehan said.
Trump’s focus on tariffs, meanwhile, threatens to inflict higher costs on consumers and businesses even as it seeks to encourage US companies to make more products at home. How much of his tough tariff talk is just a negotiating ploy remains to be seen.
Economists say a strict tariff regime would force consumers to pay more for food, clothing, consumer electronics, and cars, which the United States imports in large quantities.
Boston’s footwear industry is warily eyeing Trump’s tariff promises. The industry is already smarting from tariffs that took effect in 2018. Nearly all shoe manufacturing happens overseas now. Even New Balance, which runs several factories in New England, imports most of its shoes. The footwear industry argues that higher tariffs will be counterproductive, by driving up prices for US consumers.
Trump’s broad expansion of tariffs on imported goods could hurt companies that depend on overseas suppliers, such as online furniture retailer Wayfair. Back in 2019, when Trump raised tariffs on some Chinese goods to 25 percent, Wayfair said customers backed off and buying activity slowed.
This time around, executives of the Boston-based company said they are more prepared to shift to alternate suppliers, and more of their suppliers have moved manufacturing outside of China.
Businesses in Massachusetts and throughout the region would be hit by higher costs for key components they use in their products. Top local imports include medical equipment and pharmaceuticals, crucial to the life sciences and health care sectors, and industrial machinery.
Biotech and hospital leaders have other worries, too.
Jeremy Levin, chief executive of New York-based Ovid Therapeutics, which has laboratories in Boston, was highly critical of Trump in the Republican’s first term and publicly warned against cutting scientific corners in the approval of COVID vaccines. Levin supported Harris.
Nonetheless, he said he is cautiously optimistic that Trump would be supportive of the pharmaceutical industry despite the president-elect’s criticism of high drug prices. He said Trump has proposed tax breaks for innovative technologies and for people who invest in startups, which Levin likes.
Levin was alarmed, however, by Trump’s suggestion that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an outspoken skeptic of vaccines, might play a prominent role at the Department of Health and Human Services or any of its agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration.
During the course of his campaign, Trump was vague when discussing the health care agenda for his second administration. But he or some of his supporters in Congress have at times called for replacing the Affordable Care Act, imposing broader restrictions on abortions, and cutting the Medicaid budget.
While it’s not clear whether Trump will pursue any of those plans, many in the health care industry are alarmed at the prospect of further upheaval, particularly in a hospital sector already weakened by the pandemic, the bankruptcy of Steward Health Care, and several hospital closings in recent years, according to Steve Walsh, president of the Massachusetts Health & Hospital Association.
The post-election mood is quite different in the financial sector, where many are welcoming Trump’s victory.
Wall Street on Wednesday posted its biggest post-Election Day gain in history, reflecting confidence in Trump’s ability to effectively promote growth.
“If President Trump comes in, there will be a supply-side boom just like we had in the first term,” Kevin Hassert, who served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Trump administration, told CNBC in an interview before the election.
Bank stocks in particular soared on the hopes that the tight regulatory climate that the industry faced under the Biden administration will loosen up considerably. In particular, bank mergers have faced tough scrutiny in the past few years, with many deals getting delayed for months and some (such as State Street’s proposed Brown Brothers Harriman acquisition) getting scrapped altogether. The scrutiny, many believe, made CEOs more cautious about even considering deals. Now, that perspective is going to change.
“There’s going to be more of a willingness to allow banks to merge,” said Chris McGratty, head of US bank research at investment bank Keefe, Bruyette & Woods. “I don’t think it’s going to be the Wild West. I think it’s going to be smart deals.”
The startup economy in Massachusetts, along with the rest of the country, has suffered from decreased venture capital backing since interest rates jumped in 2022. To the extent Trump’s moves delay Fed rate cuts, that pain could be extended.
Life sciences and tech startups working on everything from fusion energy to quantum computing remain a strength of the local tech scene. They’ve been fueled by a combination of research from the region’s many universities plus increased government backing for science and technology during the Biden administration.
“It’s an open question whether [Trump] will continue to support very large-scale investments in science and technology,” Cait Brumme, chief executive of Boston-based startup accelerator MassChallenge, said. “Collectively those programs have been a huge boost.”
Trump is also expected to scale back tech antitrust enforcement, clearing the way for more takeovers. In the short term, that could pump up the startup economy as money from acquisitions gets recirculated to back new companies.
“The long-run effects of stronger antitrust enforcement may be positive for startups by encouraging greater competition in the tech industry,” said Thomas Chemmanur, a finance professor at Boston College who has studied the issue.
The incoming administration is expected to significantly slow the transition to clean energy by attempting to block unspent federal dollars for climate action, rolling back rules to cut carbon emissions, and expanding oil and gas production. Even before new policies are enacted, fear and uncertainty could suffocate support for emerging clean energy and clean tech industries, which face strong competition from rivals in China and Europe, analysts said.
The power of the president to influence the economy is routinely overstated. With the exception of his big tax cut package, Trump arguably got more credit for the economy’s strength in the first three years of his term than he deserved. And Joe Biden was unfairly blamed for inflation, which had far more to do with pandemic disruptions to supply chains and soaring energy prices, triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, than his stimulus spending.
But Trump is weighing some very aggressive actions. He can unilaterally impose some tariffs and immigration restrictions. And with the GOP poised to possibly control the House as well as the Senate, any proposals requiring congressional approval, including on taxes, would have a good chance of becoming law.
For anxious businesses throughout New England, the wait begins.
Andrew Brinker, Hilary Burns, Jon Chesto, Diti Kohli, Aaron Pressman, Jonathan Saltzman, and Robert Weisman of the Globe staff contributed reporting to this story.
