美国经济不会陷入衰退，但会从峰值回归低谷

笔者分析认为，认为美国经济今年将陷入衰退的观点有所夸张了，具体原因在我的新书《别误读中国经济》中有详细的分析。

罗思义新作《别误读中国经济》

2018年美国GDP同比增长2.9%，处于经济周期上行峰值。预计美国经济增速在一年内从经济周期的峰值降至衰退期的数值——接近2008年国际金融危机规模的情况不会发生。也尚没有迹象表明，2019年美国将再次发生自大萧条以来的更大的金融危机的可能。

相反，2019年美国经济将只是放缓，而非衰退。据IMF预测，美国GDP增速将从2018年的2.9%降至2019年的2.3%，而笔者预测的美国GDP增速则比IMF的稍高一点，但IMF的预测不是毫无道理。美国经济趋势表明，特朗普政府所宣称的“美国经济将增长加速”的说法是错误的。

相反，2019年美国经济增长将有所放缓，2020年美国经济增速甚至将慢于2019年。这对特朗普来说是一个严重的问题，因为2020年是选举年。

显然，中美元首即将在G20大阪峰会期间会晤的消息出炉当天，种种迹象表明，特朗普政府对美国经济状况感到严重关切。据彭博社透露，特朗普政府曾考虑是否有可能走法律程序解雇自己任命的美联储主席杰罗姆·鲍威尔（Jerome Powell）——后者是于2018年2月就职，这种行为是前所未有的。这显然预示着，特朗普政府对美国经济面临的下行压力非常担忧。

在即将到来的G20峰会上，习近平将与特朗普会晤

虽然我们没有必要夸大其辞，毕竟现在距离美国总统大选尚有17个月时间，这意味着特朗普尚有余地扭转民调不利的局面。虽然一些美国分析师预测2019年美国经济将陷入衰退，但如上文所述，2019年美国经济将只经历放缓，而非衰退——不过，如果2019年美国经济增长放缓太过明显，2020年出现衰退也不是不可能——但这显然对特朗普来说是极为不利的。即使不出现真正的经济衰退，民调和美国经济数据均走低，显然也会给特朗普政府带来明显的压力。

尽管美国经济形势不是唯一的因素，但这显然是G20大阪峰会中美元首会晤的背景之一。

作者注：本文是在习近平应约与特朗普通电话，从而达成两者在G20大阪峰会会晤的协定之前完成。形势的发展印证了文中的分析。

本文系观察者网独家稿件，未经授权，不得转载。

本文英文原文：

Bad polls & bad economic data put pressure on Trump US

share markets rose sharply on news of the announcement that Presidents Xi and Trump would meet at the G20 summit – as the Financial Times simply summarised it ‘Trump plan to meet Xi on trade sends US equities sharply higher’. This was a welcome piece of goods news for President Trump after a period during which he had been receiving bad news both on the opinion polls for his re-election and for the US economy. Naturally there are many aspects of the planned meeting that only those involved in the negotiations will know, but it is worth noting the objective pressures which are now bearing down on Trump.

Negative polls for Trump at the beginning of the Presidential election campaign

The first, and probably most important pressure on President Trump, was that opinion polls leading to the official launch of his re-election campaign on 18 June had been unfavourable for several months. Days before his official relaunch event his campaign dismissed three of his five polling advisers after leaks of internal polling showed the president had been trailing former Democrat Joe Biden in key states which would decide the outcome of the 2020 election – for example in Minnesota Trump trailed Biden 40% to 54% and in Michigan by 40% to 53%. Analysing 17 states, polling taken in March showed Trump trailing Biden by double digits in key swing states such as Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida and Michigan. More recent polls on 9-12 June, released by Fox News, a strongly pro-Trump TV channel, showed Trump nationally trailing nine percent behind Democrat Bernie Sanders (40% to 49%) and ten percent behind Biden (39% to 49%).

In summary as the Presidential election campaign was launched Trump was trailing badly behind Democratic rivals. In that political situation, evidently, the prospects for the US economy in 2019-2020 were crucial for Trump.

Prospects for the US economy in 2019-2020