When Congress voted to normalize trade relations with China at the beginning of this century, U.S. manufacturers braced for a stream of cheap goods to begin flowing into U.S. ports.

早在本世纪初国会投票决定与中国实现贸易关系正常化时，美国制造商就做好了廉价商品开始源源不断涌入美国港口的准备。

Instead, they got a flood. Imports from China nearly tripled from 1999 to 2005, and American factories, with their higher wages and stricter safety standards, couldn’t compete. The “China shock,” as it has come to be known, wiped out millions of jobs in the years that followed, leaving lasting scars on communities from Michigan to Mississippi.

然而，现实远超预期。从1999年到2005年，中国对美国的出口额几乎增长了两倍，而美国工厂由于工资水平较高且安全标准更为严格，无法与之竞争。接下来，后来为人们所熟知的“中国冲击”摧毁了数百万个工作岗位，给从密歇根州到密西西比州的社区都留下了持久的创伤。

To President Trump and his supporters, those job losses are an object lesson in the damage caused by decades of U.S. trade policy — damage he promises that his tariffs will now help to reverse. On Wednesday, he further raised duties on imports from China, well beyond 100 percent, even as he suspended steep tariffs he had imposed on other trading partners.

对特朗普总统及其支持者来说，这些岗位的流失正是数十年错误贸易政策的活教材，他承诺，自己所推行的关税政策将有助于扭转这种损害。上周三，他进一步提高了中国进口商品的关税，税率远超100%，尽管同时他也暂缓了对其他贸易伙伴征收的巨额关税。

Few economists endorse the idea that the United States should try to bring back manufacturing jobs en masse. Even fewer believe that tariffs would be an effective tool for doing so.

试图让制造业工作岗位全面回到美国的想法并没有得到多少经济学家的认可。更鲜有人相信关税能有效达成这一目标。

But economists who have studied the issue also argue that Mr. Trump misunderstands the nature of the China shock. The real lesson of the episode wasn’t about trade at all, they say — it was about the toll that rapid economic changes can take on workers and communities — and by failing to understand that, Mr. Trump risks repeating the mistakes he claims he has vowed to correct.

研究该议题的经济学家还指出，特朗普误解了“中国冲击”的本质。他们说，这场危机的真正教训并非关于贸易本身，而在于揭示了快速的经济变化对劳动者与社区带来的沉重代价。若是未能理解这一点，特朗普或将重蹈其声称要纠正的覆辙。

A Legacy Reconsidered

重新审视历史遗产

The first thing to understand about the China shock is that nearly every part of the narrative at the start of this article is an oversimplification.

关于“中国冲击”，首先需要明白的是，本文开头的叙述几乎每一部分都是经过了简单化的概括。

纺织和服装是制造业向中国转移的重灾区。

Factory jobs were declining as a share of employment for decades before China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. Those losses did accelerate starting around 2000, particularly in labor-intensive industries like clothing and furniture manufacturing, but not all of that decline can be attributed to competition from China, or U.S. trade policy more generally.

在中国于2001年加入世界贸易组织之前的几十年里，制造业岗位在就业中的占比一直在下降。从2000年左右开始，这种下降确实在加速了，尤其是在服装和家具制造等劳动密集型行业，但并非所有的下降都可以归咎于来自中国的竞争，或者更宽泛地说，并非都是美国的贸易政策所致。

Technology also played a major role by allowing factories to make more goods with fewer workers. And while economists disagree about exactly how much of the decline to attribute to various factors, hardly anyone thinks the United States would still employ half a million apparel makers, as it did in 2000, if China had been kept out of the W.T.O. Even the 2016 paper that coined the phrase “China shock” found that Chinese imports accounted for only a fraction of the five million manufacturing jobs lost in the 12-year period the researchers studied.

技术进步带来生产效率的提升——也就是工厂能用更少的工人生产更多的商品——同样起到了重要作用。尽管经济学家对各因素的权重存有争议，但无人否认：即便中国没有加入世贸组织，美国也不可能维持2000年那样50万服装工人的规模。2016年首次提出“中国冲击”这个概念的研究论文也承认，在12年观察期内，中国进口仅占500万制造业岗位流失的一小部分。

What set the China shock apart wasn’t that it was uniquely costly — the idea that trade has winners and losers was recognized by the economist David Ricardo in the early 19th century. Rather, it was the speed and concentration of those losses.

“中国冲击”的与众不同之处并不是因为它造成的代价格外高昂——经济学家李嘉图早在19世纪初就认识到贸易中有赢家也有输家的道理。它的不同在于岗位流失的速度之快和集中程度之高。

Communities that relied heavily on labor-intensive manufacturing industries saw those jobs evaporate in just a few years. In 2000, the furniture industry in Hickory, N.C., employed more than 32,000 people, a fifth of the area’s private-sector workers. Within a decade, that number had been cut by nearly 60 percent — a devastating blow that was repeated in communities in many regions.

短短几年内，严重依赖劳动密集型产业的社区经历了就业岗位的蒸发。2000年，北卡罗来纳州希科里市的家具行业雇佣了超过3.2万名员工，占当地私营部门就业人数的五分之一；十年后这一数字锐减60%，而类似的毁灭性打击在多地上演。

Standard economic theory held that the people and places hit by those losses should have adapted relatively quickly. Investors should have snapped up the abandoned factories and mills on the cheap and found more productive uses for them. Laid-off workers should have learned new skills and switched to faster-growing industries — and if no such jobs were available nearby, they should have found work elsewhere.

标准的经济理论认为，受到这些岗位流失冲击的人群和地区应该能够相对迅速地适应。投资者本应廉价抢购那些被废弃的工厂和厂房，并为它们找到更具生产效益的用途。而失业的工人本应学习新技能，进入那些增长更快的行业，或迁徙至就业机会更多的地区。

与中国开启正常化贸易关系后，北卡罗来纳州希科里市的家具行业十年内失去了60%的工作岗位。

None of that happened. New, higher-paying industries did spring up, but not in the places hit hardest by the manufacturing job losses. Laid-off workers wouldn’t or couldn’t move in search of opportunities, and they struggled to compete for the few good jobs that remained in their communities, many of which required a college degree.

但现实情况并未如此：新兴的高薪产业确实兴起，却并非出现在那些受制造业岗位流失冲击最严重的地区。失业工人们不愿或无力迁徙寻找机会，只能留在社区艰难竞争寥寥无几的优质岗位，而这些岗位大多要求具备大学学历。

Instead, they found work in service jobs that paid a fraction of their former factory wages, or they left the labor force. Employment rates among men plummeted; rates of addiction and premature death soared.

结果却是，他们进入了收入较低的服务性行业，薪资与之前在工厂的工作无法相提并论，或彻底退出劳动力市场。男性的就业率断崖式下降，药物成瘾与早逝率激增。

This, then, is the central insight of the China shock literature: Change is hard. Rapid change is harder.

因此，有关“中国冲击”的研究文献得出的核心结论是：变化本就艰难，骤变更是如此。

When economic shifts take place over decades, it gives workers and communities a chance to adjust. Local leaders can recruit businesses in new industries. Parents can push their children to pursue different lines of work. Those gradual adaptations don’t work when entire industries shut down in short time.

当产业更替在数十年的时间里进行，工人与社区尚能渐进调整。地方政府可培育新产业，父母引导子女选择不同职业。但当全行业在短时间内崩溃时，这套渐进适应的机制便失效了。

“Labor markets adjust over the course of generations,” said David Autor, an M.I.T. economist who was a co-author of the original China shock paper and has continued to study it. “It doesn’t happen within careers.”

“劳动力市场的调整需要几代人的时间，”麻省理工学院的经济学家戴维·奥托说道，他是最初那篇关于“中国冲击”论文的合著者之一，并且一直在继续研究这个课题。“这种调整不会在一个人的职业生涯中完成。”

An Even Faster Shock

一场更为迅速的冲击

Still, the China shock played out over years. Mr. Trump is trying to reverse it in a matter of months.

尽管如此，“中国冲击”的影响是在数年时间里逐步显现的，特朗普却试图在数月内逆转乾坤。

俄亥俄州的一家惠而浦工厂，摄于2015年。这家设备制造商将新裁员归因于需求疲软，而不是关税，但加征关税的前景使消费者支出减少了。

The tariffs he announced this month would have hit nearly every product imported from nearly every U.S. trading partner. And while he delayed many of those duties after investors rebelled, those he has kept in place still amount to the biggest change in U.S. trade policy in generations.

他本月宣布的关税措施原本几乎会波及从美国几乎所有贸易伙伴进口的所有商品。尽管在投资者的压力下，他推迟了其中许多关税的实施，但保留下来的那些关税仍堪称美国几个世代以来最大的贸易政策转向。

Such a vast disruption could have devastating consequences, including for the industries that Mr. Trump says he wants to help. Companies including Stellantis, the auto manufacturer, and Whirlpool, the appliance maker, have begun announcing thousands of layoffs. (Whirlpool attributed its move to weak demand, not tariffs, but surveys show that uncertainty over tariffs and their impact has chilled consumer spending.) More cuts are likely to follow if Mr. Trump sticks to his policies, said Mark Muro, a Brookings Institution economist who has studied how the decline of manufacturing has affected local economies.

如此巨大的冲击可能会带来毁灭性的后果，包括对特朗普声称想要帮助的那些行业。汽车制造商斯特兰蒂斯和家电制造商惠而浦等公司已经开始宣布裁员数千人。（惠而浦将裁员举措归因于需求疲软，而非关税，但调查显示，关税的不确定性及其影响已经抑制了消费者支出。）布鲁金斯学会的经济学家马克·穆罗一直在研究制造业的衰退对地方经济的影响，他表示，如果特朗普坚持其政策，可能还会有更多裁员。

“It could have China-shock-like impact, maybe even more grave,” he said.

他说：“这可能会产生类似‘中国冲击’的影响，甚至可能更为严重。”

The shock would look different this time. The losers in the China import boom were highly concentrated; the winners — all American consumers, essentially — were diffuse. This time, the opposite would be true. A few industries, such as steel making, would benefit, while the economy as a whole would suffer.

这次的冲击看起来会有所不同。在中国商品进口热潮中，输家高度集中，而赢家——实际上就是全体美国消费者——则分布广泛。而这一次，情况将恰恰相反。少数行业（比如钢铁制造业）会从中受益，而整体经济将承受代价。

Even supporters of Mr. Trump’s trade policies say it would be better to phase in tariffs to give companies time to adjust. Oren Cass, a conservative policy expert who has been one of the most prominent advocates of tariffs, wrote in The New York Times this month that the all-at-once approach was “unnecessary and unwise.”

就连特朗普贸易政策的支持者也表示，分阶段逐步加征关税是更优选项，让企业有时间调整。保守派政策专家奥伦·卡斯一直是关税政策最著名的倡导者之一，他本月在《纽约时报》撰文称，这种一步到位的方式“没有必要，也不明智”。

“Throwing supply chains into maximal disarray and imposing the highest burdens faster than companies could possibly move to avoid them leads to excessive costs with few attendant benefits,” Mr. Cass wrote.

卡斯写道：“让供应链陷入极度混乱，在相关企业来不及规避的情况下施加最重负担，只会导致成本激增而几乎无法带来任何好处。”

Signs of Recovery

复苏的迹象

扭转从中国进口的热潮将使一些行业受益，例如炼钢，但可能会给零售商、农民、汽车制造商和消费者带来高昂的代价。

Mr. Trump’s attempt to wind back the clock on trade is coming just as the scars of the China shock seem to be fading.

就在“中国冲击”留下的创伤似乎正在逐渐消退之际，特朗普却试图在贸易问题上让时间倒流。

Cities whose industrial bases were hollowed out by competition from China, or from earlier waves of industrial decline, have begun to attract new industries and workers. Job growth in recent years has actually been stronger in these distressed counties than in the high-tech hubs that were the winners in the earlier phases of globalization, according to one recent study by economists at the Upjohn Institute in Kalamazoo, Mich.

那些曾因中国竞争或早期产业衰退而空心化的城市已开始吸引新兴产业和劳动力。位于密歇根州卡拉马祖市的普强研究所最近的一项研究显示，近年来，那些受冲击地区的就业增长反而高于全球化早期阶段成为赢家的高科技中心。

Places have made those gains not as a result of broad national policies like tariffs but through long-term strategies that were tailored to communities’ individual strengths, said Timothy J. Bartik, who was one of the study’s authors. Grand Rapids, Mich., has developed a specialty in medical device manufacturing. The Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania took advantage of its location to become a logistics hub.

该研究报告的作者之一蒂莫西·巴蒂克表示，这些地区取得这些进展并非得益于关税这样的广泛的国家政策，而是通过因地制宜的长期战略。密歇根州的大急流城在医疗器械制造方面发展出了特色产业，宾夕法尼亚州的利哈伊谷则依托地理位置优势成为了物流中心。

“To really revitalize communities takes a prolonged investment in a strategy that takes account of local characteristics,” Mr. Bartik said. “One size does not fit all. You need a different strategy for each local community.”

“要想真正振兴社区，需要长期投资于一个根据当地特点制定的战略，”蒂莫西·巴蒂克说。“没有放之四海而皆准的方案，每个地区都需要因地制宜。”

Hickory, the North Carolina community devastated by the loss of the furniture industry, found itself with a surplus of cheap hydroelectric power after the factories and textile mills left town. That allowed it to attract an Apple data center, the seed of what has become a miniature high-tech hub. The community also invested in amenities to make itself attractive to younger workers: Today, old mill buildings have been redeveloped as restaurants, breweries and loft-style offices.

北卡罗来纳州希科里市因家具行业的没落遭受重创，但在工厂和纺织厂离开后，这个社区发现自己拥有过剩的水电资源。这令它得以吸引苹果公司的数据中心落户，后者也为一个微型高科技产业集群的形成播下了种子。该社区还投资建设便利设施，以吸引年轻劳动力的到来：如今，许多旧厂房已被改造为餐馆、精酿啤酒厂和大开间办公空间。

“Suddenly you’ve got cool companies, cool opportunities to work and a changing vibe within the city itself,” said Scott Millar, president of the Catawba County Economic Development Corporation. The local unemployment rate, which was higher than the national rate for more than a decade after the China shock, is now consistently at or below that mark.

“突然间，你有了很酷的公司、很棒的工作机会，城市本身的氛围也在发生变化，”卡托巴县经济发展公司总裁斯科特·米勒说。当地的失业率在“中国冲击”后的十多年里一直高于全国平均水平，如今已稳定在基准线以下。

Still, Mr. Millar says the experience of the early 2000s showed how vulnerable a community can be to rapid economic changes. Many local businesses might be open to Mr. Trump’s argument that the economy needs to endure short-term pain to achieve long-run revitalization. But, Mr. Millar said, “I can also see some people asking, does the change have to happen this quickly?”

尽管如此，米勒表示，21世纪初的经历表明，一个社区在快速的经济变化面前是多么脆弱。许多当地企业可能会认同特朗普的观点，即经济需要承受短期的痛苦，以实现长期的振兴。但是——米勒说道，“我也能理解有些人会问，变化非得要来得这么快吗？”

Communities like Hickory have spent more than two decades recovering from the last big trade shock. Could Mr. Trump’s disruptions force them to go through it again?

像希科里这样的社区花了二十多年的时间才从上一次巨大的贸易冲击中恢复过来。特朗普掀起的混乱会迫使他们再次经历这样的痛苦吗？

“I think there could be parallels,” Mr. Millar said. “It took a long time to pull out of that hole.”

“我认为可能会有相似之处，”米勒说。“我们当初可是花了很长时间才摆脱困境的。”