美国贸易政策的历史演变及启示

Historical evolution and implications of the trade policy in the United States

随着中美贸易摩擦的不断变化,正确认识美国贸易政策的走向与选择,梳理其发展的历史轨迹与演化逻辑,成为剖析当今中美贸易发展形势不可缺少的一环。美国历史上的贸易政策经历了3个阶段:以财政收入为目的的阶段(独立战争到内战时期);实行限制性关税以保护国内产业的阶段(内战到大萧条时期);促成互惠性条约以扩大本国出口的阶段(二战结束后到金融危机以前)。通过梳理这3个时期的贸易政策,分析这3个时期美国国内不同地区、产业和群体的利益分歧,总结了美国贸易政策演化的历史逻辑。研究认为,美国在历史上曾长期实行关税保护政策,二战后美国虽然维持了很长时间的低关税水平,但这是由于这一时期贸易保护的形式转变为各类非关税贸易壁垒;南北战争、大萧条和金融危机等经济环境的变化对美国贸易政策产生了重大影响,但整体上美国的贸易政策在特定历史阶段内保持相对稳定。

With the constant changes in the Sino-US trade conflicts,it has become an indispensable link in analyzing the current Sino-US trade situation to correctly understand the orientation and choices of US trade policy and to sort out the historical tracks and evolution logic of its development.The trade policy in the history of the United States has gone through three stages:the stage of obtaining fiscal revenue as objective(from the War of Independence to the Civil War);the stage of implementing restrictive tariffs to protect domestic industries(from the Civil War to the Great Depression);and the stage of promoting reciprocal agreements to expand domestic exports(from the end of World War II to the pre-financial crisis).By sorting out the trade policies of these three stages,the authors analyzed the domestic divergence of interests in different regions,industries and groups in the United States in each stage,and summarized the historical logic of the evolution of US trade policy.Studies find that the United States has implemented tariff protection policy for a long time in history.Although the United States maintained a low tariff level for a long time after World War II,this is happening because of the transformation of trade protection from tariff measurements to non-tariff trade barriers during this period.Changes in economic situations such as the Civil War,Great Depression and financial crisis have exerted significant impacts on the US trade policy,but it has remained relatively stable within specific historical stages in general.