大卫·弗鲁姆 对于任何借款人来说，这都是痛苦的一周。在全球范围内，贷款方都在要求更高的利率。全球债券市场正在向所有借款人索取更高的收益率，首当其冲的是最大的借款人：各国政府。但并非所有政府支付的代价都相同。
By David Frum This has been a week of pain for anyone who borrows money. All over the world, lenders are demanding higher interest rates. The global bond market is extracting higher yields from every borrower, starting with the biggest borrowers of all: national governments. But not every government is paying equally.
财务稳健、领导诚实可靠的借款人支付的成本较低。而财务混乱、领导腐败、缺乏信任的借款人则需支付更高成本。在过去，美国本应位列前者。但在特朗普总统执政下，美国已跌落至后者之列。
Trustworthy borrowers with solid finances and honest leadership pay less. Distrusted borrowers with disordered finances and corrupt leaders pay more. In times past, the United States would have headed that first list. Under President Trump, the United States has tumbled onto the second one.
在昨日交易中，美国10年期国债收益率徘徊在5.2%附近。德国支付的利率低于美国。法国支付的利率低于美国。加拿大支付的利率低于美国。甚至希腊支付的利率也低于美国。爱沙尼亚——一个时刻面临俄罗斯入侵威胁、主权面临毁灭风险的国家——支付的利率远低于美国：仅为3.6%。
In trading yesterday, the yield on a U.S. 10-year Treasury bond hovered near 5.2 percent. Germany pays less than the United States. France pays less than the United States. Canada pays less than the United States. Even Greece pays less than the United States. Estonia—a country under constant threat of a Russian invasion and the annihilation of its sovereignty—pays much less than the United States: only 3.6 percent.
关于债券市场的大部分报道都强调伊朗战争、全球通胀以及全球大流行病期间政府债务的激增。这些是所有主要借款人面临的共同状况。但它们无法解释为何美国债务的成本高于希腊或爱沙尼亚的债务。阅读：曾经不担心债务的经济学家们如今陷入了恐慌2011年4月，时任众议员保罗·瑞安在美国企业研究所发表讲话，警告美国即将面临债务危机。当时美国的债务为14.3万亿美元，而瑞安所在的共和党在前一年赢得了众议院的控制权。随后，该党在2014年赢得了参议院多数席位，并在2016年赢得了总统大选。2017年，当瑞安担任众议院议长时，国会通过了一项为期10年的大规模减税政策，特朗普签署了该法案，但并未采取相应的支出抵消措施。到2020年初，国债攀升至23.2万亿美元，随后随着美国政府——正如世界各国政府一样——在疫情及其后续影响期间的大规模支出，债务进一步激增。
Most reporting on the bond market emphasizes the Iran war, global inflation, and the surge in government debt during the global pandemic. These are the conditions faced by every major borrower. But they don’t explain why American debt is more expensive than the debt of Greece or Estonia. Read: Economists who weren’t worried about the debt are now panicking In April 2011, then-Representative Paul Ryan delivered a speech at the American Enterprise Institute to warn of an imminent debt crisis in the United States. The country’s debt stood at $14.3 trillion, and Ryan’s Republican Party had won control of the House the year before. It would win a majority in the Senate in 2014, and take the presidency in 2016. In 2017, when Ryan was speaker of the House, Congress enacted and Trump signed a big 10-year tax cut without comparable spending offsets. The national debt climbed to $23.2 trillion by early 2020, then spiked further as the U.S. government—like governments everywhere—spent massively during the pandemic and its aftermath.
到2025年特朗普重返白宫时，国债已达到34万亿美元。特朗普以及他助力共和党掌控的参众两院本可以恢复财政纪律，但他们反而将2017年的减税政策永久化，且同样没有采取相应的支出抵消措施。（特朗普确实试图通过其单方面关税带来的收入来抵消2025年的减税影响——这些关税最终由美国企业和消费者买单——但最高法院裁定这些关税非法。特朗普新的“爱我就爱我”纳税人资助的竞选广告吹嘘他所谓的“史上最大规模减税”，却对巨大的赤字和他那夭折的关税只字不提。）2026年8月，美国国债突破40万亿美元。按照目前的轨迹，到2030年，即特朗普宪法规定的任期结束后的第二年，债务将超过50万亿美元。美国目前支付的债务利息已经超过了国防开支。到特朗普总统任期结束时，利息成本也将超过医疗保险（Medicare）的资金投入。
By the time Trump returned to office in 2025, the national debt had reached $34 trillion. Trump and the Republican-led House and Senate he helped usher in could have restored fiscal discipline. Instead, they made the 2017 tax cut permanent, again without comparable spending offsets. (Trump did try to offset his 2025 tax cuts with revenue from his unilateral tariffs—paid for by American businesses and consumers—but the Supreme Court ruled the tariffs illegal. Trump’s new “love me, love me” taxpayer-funded campaign ad touts what he calls the “largest tax cuts in history,” but ignores both the gaping deficits and his abortive tariffs.) The U.S. national debt surpassed $40 trillion in August 2026. On the current trajectory, it will exceed $50 trillion by 2030, the year after Trump is constitutionally required to leave office. The United States now pays more to service its debt than it spends on national defense. By the end of the Trump presidency, interest costs will exceed Medicare funding too.
其他国家也背负着巨额债务。那么，为什么美国人支付的利率比大多数其他大型民主国家更高？这在一定程度上是一个数据问题。美国的债务占GDP比率大约是德国、荷兰和北欧国家两倍，并且仍在快速上升，而意大利和希腊等其他严重负债国家的债务负担则保持稳定或正在下降。
Other countries also have big debts. Why, then, do Americans pay higher interest rates than most other large democracies? This is partly a data problem. America’s debt-to-GDP ratio is about double that of Germany, the Netherlands, and Scandinavian countries, and it continues to rise fast while the debt burdens of other seriously indebted countries, such as Italy and Greece, are steady or declining.
但问题的很大一部分应归咎于特朗普和共和党，这个所谓的“财政纪律”政党。欧盟拥有一个真正独立的中央银行。使用欧元的国家，包括希腊和爱沙尼亚，不能简单地通过通货膨胀来摆脱债务。然而，在特朗普治下的美国，白宫一直不断攻击并破坏美联储的独立性。去年，在美联储未能降息后，特朗普试图罢免一名美联储理事，并威胁解雇时任美联储主席杰罗姆·鲍威尔。今年早些时候，特朗普政府对鲍威尔启动了刑事调查，据推测是为了施压美联储放松货币政策。目前由特朗普提名的鲍威尔继任者凯文·沃什领导的美联储，似乎迄今已顶住了这些攻击。但持有美元的人应该担心下一次。
But much of the problem can be blamed on Trump and the GOP, the so-called party of fiscal discipline. The European Union has a truly independent central bank. Countries that use the euro, including Greece and Estonia, cannot simply inflate their way out of debt. In the United States under Trump, however, the White House has steadily attacked and subverted the Federal Reserve’s independence. Last year, Trump attempted to remove a Fed governor and threatened to fire the Fed’s then-chair, Jerome Powell, after the board failed to lower interest rates. Earlier this year, the Trump administration initiated criminal investigations against Powell, presumably to pressure the Fed to loosen monetary policy. The Fed—now chaired by Kevin Warsh, Trump’s pick for Powell’s successor—seems to have withstood these assaults so far. But dollar-holders should worry about the next time.
特朗普进行了一项史无前例的举动，这可能威胁全球经济并摧毁对美元的信任，他公开猜测拒绝支付部分或全部国家公共债务。在2023年的一次CNN市政厅会议上，特朗普敦促国会共和党人“进行违约”，以迫使拜登政府进行“大规模”的支出削减。2024年，特朗普的首席经济学家斯蒂芬·米兰撰写并分发了一项计划，通过迫使美国债权人将现有债务交换为利率更低的长期债券，来降低国家的借贷成本。特朗普后来任命米兰为美联储理事会理事；米兰今年五月辞职，为沃什腾出位置。收听：如果美国违约会发生什么？
In an unprecedented act that could threaten the global economy and destroy trust in the dollar, Trump has speculated about refusing to pay some or all of the country’s public debt. In a CNN town hall in 2023, Trump urged congressional Republicans to “do a default” to force “massive” spending cuts on the Biden administration. In 2024, Trump’s chief economist, Stephen Miran, wrote up and circulated a plan to reduce the country’s borrowing costs by forcing U.S. creditors to swap existing debt for longer-term bonds at lower interest rates. Trump later appointed Miran to the Federal Reserve board of governors; Miran resigned this past May to make room for Warsh. Listen: What happens if the U.S. defaults?
特朗普的总统任期终将结束。然而，违约意愿已成为共和党政治的一个标志性主题。美国债务受制于一种被称为“债务上限”的奇怪人为机制，该机制对联邦政府的借款设定了最高限额。过去，多数党会按需提高上限，而少数党则会发表关于财政不负责任的谴责性演讲。然而，2010年之后，国会中的共和党人开始将债务上限作为政治武器。
The Trump presidency will end. Yet a readiness to default has become a signature theme of Republican politics. U.S. debt is subject to a strange artifact called the debt ceiling, which imposes a maximum limit on federal borrowing. In the past, the majority party would raise the ceiling as required, while the minority party intoned scolding speeches about fiscal irresponsibility. After 2010, however, Republicans in Congress began to use the debt ceiling as a political weapon.
2011年，共和党控制的众议院拒绝提高上限，直到国家距离债务违约仅剩几天时间，这促使评级机构标准普尔剥夺了美国的长期AAA信用评级。2013年和2015年，共和党人再次将国家推向触及债务上限的边缘，而在特朗普的敦促下，2023年又重演了这一幕。同年，另一家评级机构惠誉下调了美国债务的AAA评级，并将“治理能力的削弱”列为主要原因。去年，特朗普威胁要解雇鲍威尔，引发了人们对央行独立性的质疑，随后最后一家主要评级机构穆迪也下调了美国的评级，理由是财政赤字不断扩大且利息成本上升。
In 2011, the Republican House majority refused to raise the ceiling until the country was within days of a debt default, prompting the rating agency Standard & Poor’s to strip the U.S. of its long-term triple-A credit rating. Republicans again pushed the country to within hours or days of hitting the debt ceiling in 2013 and 2015—and then again, at Trump’s urging, in 2023. Another agency, Fitch, dropped its triple-A rating of U.S. debt that year, citing “erosion of governance” as a principal cause. After Trump’s threats to fire Powell raised questions about the central bank’s independence last year, the last major rating agency, Moody’s, downgraded the U.S., citing expanding fiscal deficits and rising interest costs.
在众议院和参议院共和党人的纵容下，特朗普政府的腐败也应对国家借贷成本的上升负责。
The corruption of the Trump administration, enabled by Republicans in the House and Senate, also bears blame for the country’s rising borrowing costs.
2006年的一项研究发现，根据非营利组织“透明国际”的评估，一个国家腐败程度越高，其债务成本就越高。在美国国内，腐败程度较高的州支付的利率高于较为廉洁的州。2024年8月，一个与特朗普竞选团队相关的社交媒体账号发布了一条反移民警告：“引入第三世界……就会变成第三世界。”然而，特朗普价值数十亿美元的自我牟利计划、对总统特赦权的滥用、对美联储独立性的攻击，以及遍布华盛顿的昂贵面子工程，都使得美国看起来更像巴基斯坦、尼日利亚或菲律宾，而非一个制度健全的民主国家。
A 2006 study found that the more corrupt a country was rated by the nonprofit Transparency International, the more it paid for its debt. Within the United States, more corrupt states pay higher interest rates than more honest states. In August 2024, a Trump-campaign social-media account posted an anti-immigration warning: “Import the third world … Become the third world.” Yet Trump’s multibillion-dollar self-enrichment schemes, perversion of presidential pardons, attacks on the independence of the Federal Reserve, and costly vanity projects throughout Washington all make the United States look more like Pakistan, Nigeria, or the Philippines than a consolidated democracy.
如今，美国人正在通过房贷、车贷、学生贷款和信用卡账单，为这些腐败的奢靡行为买单。就借贷利率而言，美国目前的位置介于爱沙尼亚和深陷财务困境的国家之间。这并非全因特朗普而起，但如果没有他以及那些纵容他的人，这一切本不会发生。
Americans are now paying for these crooked extravagances on their mortgages, car loans, student debt, and credit-card interest statements. When it comes to borrowing rates, the United States now sits between Estonia and countries in deep financial trouble. This is not all because of Trump, but it wouldn’t have happened without him and those who enabled him.