David Marsh：美元单边主义的复苏，特朗普恐慌和欧洲脆弱
唐纳德·特朗普的上台，可能会在欧洲掀起一场对美元单边主义的新一轮打击。美元单边主义在上世纪60年代一直给欧洲造成间歇性打击，但最近35年来已经偃旗息鼓。
特朗普这么一个没有任何外交经验，鼓吹“美国第一、增长至上”的商人当选总统，给欧洲的经济和货币一体化造成了极大的潜在性威胁。极有可能发生的是，美欧将实行其长期预谋的财政宽松和货币紧缩政策，但这种转变不是协调性的，而是破坏性的。
特朗普有着商人式的保护主义思维，大力拥护经济民粹主义，又对重组美国盟友阵营做出重诺，这些做法传统上都是危害跨大西洋关系的因素，对该地区的稳定无一益处。而这也将冲击到欧洲对美国的出口，出口是欧洲疲软的经济中为数不多的增长点之一。
不幸的话，欧洲还很可能遭遇像过去一样甚至是比过去更严重的动荡：1971年尼克松政府时期美元与黄金脱钩；上世纪80年代早期，保罗·沃尔克在卡特和里根政府任期内实行急剧的紧缩政策；2008年，布什任期内雷曼兄弟的破产所引起的严重后果。
1999年欧洲货币联盟成立，是欧洲30年货币合作努力的重要成果。该联盟成立的一个主要目的就是要使欧洲免受过去那样的国际货币体系的动荡。而现在看来，类似的情况仍有可能发生。
自2010年欧债危机以来，欧洲建立了非常行之有效的内部防御机制，但是欧洲货币联盟内部的不平衡依然存在，使得整个欧洲在面对外部动荡时仍然很脆弱。
欧洲上一次遭受大范围的美元冲击还是1978年11月，当时卡特实行重振美元计划，大幅提升美元利率。尤其是在沃尔克1979年8月接任美联储主席后实行紧缩政策，欧洲也不得不随之提升利率。货币紧缩抑制了经济增长，并导致了三位政治人物下台：卡特输掉了1980年选举，法国总统瓦勒里·季斯卡·德斯坦1981年5月下台；德国总理赫尔穆特·施密特1982年10月下台。里根于1981年1月接任卡特成为总统，推行了对美元的“善意忽视”的政策（即对货币政策不作为）。现在特朗普也很有可能实行与里根政府相同的政策。
历史总是惊人地相似。1968年尼克松当选总统，1970年他任命阿瑟·伯恩斯为美联储主席，旨在为增长和就业提供宽松的环境。同样，特朗普将任命一位经济支持论者来接替珍妮特·耶伦。耶伦四年的任期即将在2018年2月结束，特朗普谴责其与总统巴拉克·奥巴马串通一气。尼克松手下的财政部长约翰·康纳利向美国的外国同僚说：“美元是我们的货币，但这可是你们的问题。”在特朗普执政期间，这种情况可能会重新出现。
无论特朗普要将美联储引向何方，考虑到制定利率的联邦公开市场委员会是独立的机构，白宫和央行的冲突似乎无法避免。当选总统无视经济正统学说，愿意提高预算赤字以推行减税和基础设施建设，这一举动很可能导致较高的通货膨胀。从长期来看，会使得美元强弱动荡不定；而从短期来看，欧洲央行将在12月8日决定下一步的量化宽松计划，在这一敏感时期，特朗普的做法会破坏欧洲央行的债券购买计划。
特朗普一直以自己没有政治经历为傲，很可能对欧洲的弱点毫不手软。意大利、荷兰、法国和德国在接下来的12个月中将迎来激烈的选举，特朗普可以借此机会揭露欧洲人之间的裂痕，正如他在美国的上位手段一样。
一段时间以来，央行一直担心，虽然国际增长复苏是件好事，但会压制高涨的债券价格，央行政府债券也会损失在2009年债券购买热中获得的大量收益。欧洲尤为如此，因为欧洲央行2015年3月才开始购买债券，当时债券价格已经很高了。
特朗普上周三当选之后，欧洲和美国主权债券收益大幅上升，欧元区通胀预期也上升到8个月以来的最高值，因此反对欧洲央行管理委员会将量化宽松延期到2017年3月的呼声也越来越强。德国政府经济顾问委员会在11月2日提出警告，进一步加强德国央行反对买入债券的观点，委员会称欧洲央行政策“对欧元区和德国都不适用”。特朗普恐慌和高通胀交织在一起，必将进一步引发关于欧洲央行量化宽松政策的冲突——前方仍有许多恶战。
Donald Trump’s ascent seems likely to unleash on Europe a new and damaging form of dollar unilateralism – a peril the old Continent has periodically suffered since the 1960s, but has lain dormant for much of the past 35 years.
The approaching presidency of a go-for-growth ‘America-first’ businessman unschooled in any kind of diplomacy poses a grave potential threat to the cohesion of Europe’s economic and monetary union. In store is a probable shift in the US and Europe – disruptive rather than coordinated – to a long-championed goal of fiscal loosening and monetary tightening.
Trump’s mercantilist-protectionist leanings, espousal of economic populism and promises to shake up ties with America’s allies combine all the traditional ingredients for toxicity in transatlantic relations and none of the sources of stability. This could hit European exports to the US, one of the few factors supporting anaemic European growth.
If Europe is unlucky, it could be exposed to effects mirroring and even exceeding the worst past upheavals: Richard Nixon’s severing of the gold-dollar link in 1971, Paul Volcker’s drastic Federal Reserve tightening under Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s, and the troubled aftermath of the 2008 Lehman Brothers bankruptcy under George W. Bush.
One of the main reasons for setting up EMU in 1999 as a culmination of a 30-year process of European currency co-operation was to protect Europe from exactly the kind of international monetary vicissitudes that now seem probable.
Europe has constructed impressive internal defence mechanisms since the European debt crisis in 2010, but large EMU imbalances remain, making the continent vulnerable to external tensions.
Europe has not been exposed to a full-scale dollar buffeting since the sharp rise in US interest rates that started with President Carter’s dollar support package in November 1978. This culminated in Fed tightening under Volcker – Fed chairman after August 1979 – that sparked concomitant interest rate increases in Europe. The monetary squeeze depressed growth and led to the political demise of three leaders: Carter in the November 1980 election, French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing in May 1981, and German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt in October 1982. Reagan, who took over from Carter in January 1981, ushered in a policy of ‘benign neglect’ of the dollar that may now resurface under Trump.
Another historical parallel is President Nixon’s election in 1968, which led to his naming Arthur Burns as Fed chairman in 1970 with the aim of easing conditions for growth and employment. In similar vein, Trump is expected to appoint an economic sympathiser as successor to Janet Yellen, whose four-year Fed chairmanship ends in February 2018, and whom he has already castigated as unduly complicit with President Barack Obama. Nixon’s Treasury secretary John Connally told America’s foreign counterparties, ‘The dollar may be our currency but it’s your problem’ – a phrase that may reappear under Trump.
Whatever Trump’s choice to head the Fed, discord between the White House and central bank seems inevitable in view of the independent nature of the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee. The president-elect’s disregard for economic orthodoxy and his willingness to run larger budget deficits to fund tax cuts and infrastructure spending are likely to generate higher inflation. Longer term, this promises a volatile dollar veering between strength and weakness. In the shorter term, it could scupper the European Central Bank’s bond-buying programme at a sensitive time, shortly before the ECB decides on the next stages of quantitative easing on 8 December.
Taking pride in his non-existent experience in political office, Trump is likely to take an uncompromising line on Europe’s weaknesses. Ahead of electoral tussles in the next 12 months in Italy, the Netherlands, France and Germany, Trump could lay bare fault lines among European populations similar to those that have promoted his rise in America.
Central bankers have worried for some time that an otherwise welcome international growth revival would depress inflated bond prices and confront central banks with substantial losses on government securities acquired during bond-buying sprees since 2009. Europe is particularly exposed, since the ECB started buying only relatively late, in March 2015, at a time when bond prices were already very high.
A sharp rise in sovereign yields in Europe and the US since Trump’s win last Tuesday, together with an increase in euro area inflation expectations to an eight-month high, will buttress opposition on the ECB’s governing council to an extension in ECB quantitative easing beyond March 2017. The Bundesbank’s anti-bond buying strictures have been reinforced by a warning on 2 November from the German government’s council of economic advisers that ECB policy is ‘neither appropriate for the euro area nor Germany’. A mix of Trump trepidation and higher inflation will certainly stoke conflict over ECB QE – and many still more bruising battles lie ahead.