评论｜现在重启美国经济简直荒谬至极

Editor's note: As the number of COVID-19 infections continues to rise, so does the U.S. unemployment rate, which is taking a huge toll on the U.S. economy. However, Donald Trump rushed to announce the news of restarting the U.S. economy. Is it really the right time now? And What's the outlook for unemployment in the U.S.? John Ross, former director of economic and business policy for the Mayor of London and a senior fellow at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies under Renmin University of China, shares his views with CGTN. The opinions expressed in the video are his and do not necessarily represent the views of CGTN.

CGTN: More than 22 million Americans have filed for unemployment since the national emergency declaration. What's the outlook for unemployment in the U.S.? 

自美国宣布进入国家紧急状态以来，超过2200万美国人申请了失业救济。美国的失业率前景如何？ 

John Ross: The outlook is obviously very bad. The only question is whether it will be a disaster or whether it'll be even worse than that, and I would call it a catastrophe. This is obviously the biggest increase in unemployment since the Great Depression in 1929. 

前景显然非常糟糕。唯一的问题是这将是一场灾难，还是会更糟，我认为这是一场毁灭性打击。当前的失业率显然创下了1929年大萧条以来的最大增幅。

It depends upon whether the U.S. government starts to respond in a more rational way.

后续的发展取决于美国政府是否开始采取更加理智的抗疫手段。

Some parts of the United States, for example, Los Angeles or New York, are responding rather sensibly. 

美国的一些地区，例如洛杉矶和纽约，对疫情的应对还是较为理智的。

The Trump administration, unfortunately, is doing completely stupid things. It's encouraging people protesting against the lockdown and it's ridiculously attempting to claim that China is responsible for this, when it had two months to prepare. So there's actually a fight going on inside the United States. Unfortunately, the trend is very, very bad. 

遗憾的是，特朗普政府所采取的是彻头彻尾的愚蠢做法。它鼓励民众抗议封城举措，而且自己明明有两个月的时间做准备，却荒谬地试图宣称中国应该为美国的疫情负责。所以实际上美国内部正在进行斗争。很遗憾，这种趋势非常非常糟糕。

If you look at the number of deaths in the United States in proportion to its population, the situation is more than 30 times worse than China. I hope sense will prevail in the Trump administration, but unfortunately, it doesn't seem so at the moment.

如果从死亡人数占总人口的比例来看，美国的情况要比中国严重30倍。我希望特朗普政府能够诉诸理性，但不幸的是，目前情况似乎并非如此。

Instead of concentrating on protecting the U.S. population, it's blaming China, immigrants. Trump's big announcement is there's going to be a ban on immigration to the U.S., but that's not the problem. It's not immigrants bringing the coronavirus into the U.S., they have a huge domestic outbreak. The situation in the U.S. is very bad, and how bad it will get, it will depend on the Trump administration adjusting its terrible policies.

美国没有集中全力保护自己的人民，却在责备中国和移民。特朗普宣布了一项重要决定，即禁止移民入境，但这不是问题所在。美国的新冠疫情并不是移民入境造成的，而是在本土大规模暴发的。美国目前的形势非常严峻，接下来会发展到何种程度取决于特朗普政府能否调整其糟糕的政策。

CGTN: Donald Trump announced his Opening Up America Again plan on April 16. Do you think now is the right time to restart the American economy?

美国总统特朗普于4月16日宣布了重启美国计划。您认为现在到了重启美国经济的时候吗？

John Ross: No, it is much too early. China's policy for dealing with the coronavirus is very clear – you have to get the number of domestic transmissions down to zero, or as close to zero as you can get. China's averaging less than 10 domestic cases per day. That means you can control that because you can trace everybody who's got it, but the U.S. is attempting to open up its economy when there are thousands of cases a day. And we know what happens; the coronavirus spreads exponentially. 

没有，现在还太早。中国的疫情应对政策非常清晰，必须要等到本土传播病例清零，或者尽可能接近于清零。中国目前每日新增本土病例平均不超过10例。这意味着，疫情能够得到控制，因为每一个病例都能被追踪到。然而，美国目前每天有成千上万的新增确诊病例，却想重启经济。我们知道会发生什么。新冠病毒将会呈指数级传播。

Let's say there are 10 cases a day, each person is in contact with 20 people. That means you've got to trace 200 people, and a country can do that. If you've got 20 people and 5,000 cases a day, you've got to trace 100,000 people and this is impossible. It is absolutely absurd opening the U.S. economy at the present time.

如果说每天新增10例，每一例的接触者有20人，那么你需要追踪200人，一个国家有能力这样做。但如果每天新增5000例，算上每例的20个接触者，就需要追踪10万人，这是不可能的。现在就重启美国经济绝对是荒谬至极的。

CGTN: The price of a barrel of U.S. oil fell to less than nothing last week. It was the first time in history the price was negative. What does this mean for the U.S. and the global economy?

上周，美国单桶原油价格跌至负值。这是历史上首次出现原油价格负值。这对美国和全球经济意味着什么？ 

John Ross: We have to distinguish two things: the structural feature of the situation and the peculiarity of the future's market.

我们必须分清两件事，即目前形势的结构性特点和期货市场的特殊性。

Structurally, because this is such a very large decline in the global economy since the Great Depression, the fundamental price of oil is falling very much. 

从结构上来说，目前全球经济出现了大萧条以来最严重的萎缩，造成石油的基本价格大幅下跌。

The second thing is there's a peculiarity of the future's market, in which you had to accept the delivery of 1,000 barrels of U.S. oil yesterday if you wanted to continue… most people can't store 1,000 barrels of oil and therefore they had to sell it to pay other people. So let's not pay too much attention to the negative value price.

其次，期货市场有一个特点，就是如果你不想违约，就必须接受昨天交付的1000桶美国原油……大多数人无法储存1000桶原油，因此他们不得不将其出售来支付其他人。所以，我们不需要太关注这个负值的价格。 

But the key thing is that the price of oil is very low. This reflects the huge downturn in the world economy. It's going to be good for countries that are big oil importers. 

但关键是石油价格非常低。这反映了世界经济的严重衰退。这对于主要石油进口国来说是好事。

But for oil-producing countries, it will be disastrous. Some of them, such as Russia or Saudi Arabia, have very big reserves, foreign exchange reserves, and will be able to survive for some months. For others, it's going to have a disastrous effect. This will have very big, maybe not economic, but geopolitical consequences. So, I would rather focus on the very low general price of oil, rather than the negative one. We'll see whether it comes back in June or not, but it's a very serious structural threat.

但对产油国来说，这将是灾难性的。其中一些国家，如俄罗斯或沙特阿拉伯，有很多储备，外汇储备，能够维持几个月。对其他国家来说，则会造成灾难性的后果。这将会带来巨大的影响，也许不是经济上的，而是地缘政治上的影响。所以，我更加关注的是极低的总体油价，而不是这一次的负值。我们看看这个价格是否会在六月份回升，但这是一个非常严重的结构性威胁。

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