• A trade war is brewing between the US and China.
• The US-China trade balance misses hundreds of billions of sales made through offshore subsidiaries.
• Tariffs could hurt both sides more than the record-high US trade deficit with China suggests.

President Donald Trump loves to hate the trade deficit the US runs with China — even using it to promote a trade war between the two countries — but he could be missing a huge point.

On the campaign trail, Trump called trade policies with Beijing the " target="_blank"greatest theft in the history of the world." And earlier this month, he used the deficit as supposed evidence that trade wars are "easy to win" in a tweet widely seen as referencing China.

"When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win," Trump tweeted on March 2. "Example, when we are down $100 billion with a certain country and they get cute, don’t trade anymore-we win big. It’s easy!"

But the trade deficit doesn't account for hundreds of billions of dollars in sales made by subsidiaries, US companies run abroad.

"The trade balance approach is clearly misleading," Deutsche Bank economists Zhiwei Zhang and Yi Xi ong wrote in a note to clients Monday. "Each side has a lot to lose from a trade war."

US subsidiaries sold $223 billion goods and services in China in 2017, according to a Bureau of Economic Analysis survey. Those weren't counted toward the US trade deficit with China, which recently hit a record-high deficit at $566 billion.play

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 (Deutsche Bank)

A lapse in data can also be seen at the company level. Apple generated $48 billion in revenue from China in 2016, mostly from iPhone sales. But, according to trade data, China imported only $1 million of cell phones from the US that year.

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 (Deutsche Bank)

"From an international trade perspective, iPhone sold by Apple's Chinese subsidiaries are not counted as imports," Zhang and Xiong wrote. "But from an economic and financial perspective, iPhone is a US product, and the US benefits the most from it."

Likewise, General Motors sold 4 million cars in China last year — about 400,000 more than in the US. But because most of those were manufactured and distributed through a Shanghai subsidiary, they also don't count toward trade data.

China has already started hitting back on the $60 billion in tariffs Trump announced last week. Beijing announced Friday that it would impose its own tariffs of about $3 billion on more than 100 American goods, including seamless steel pipes, pork, wine and fruit.

Apple is among companies that are a potential target for Chinese tariffs down the road. General Motors could hurt sooner, as tariffs on aluminum and steel imports threaten the company's bottom line. And things would only get worse for US companies in the event of a trade war, according to Zhang and Xiong.

"The most damaging retaliation from China is to punish the US business interests in China," they wrote.

美企在华分公司是美出口统计灯下黑

信源：环球时报｜编辑：2018-04-02

德意志银行3月27日发布的一项关于中美贸易的报告说，通用、苹果等美国公司在华的分支机构2015年在华生产销售了2230亿美元的产品，这一巨大数字没有被计入中美贸易。该报告还说2015年美国企业对华出口加上它们分支机构的在华销售共达3730亿美元，而中国企业在美总销售为4030亿美元，美方的逆差一共300亿美元。这与华盛顿统计的当年3600多亿美元对华贸易逆差有很大差距。

统计方法是中美贸易评估的重大争议之一。虽然每一种统计都有它的角度和道理，但毫无疑问的是，随着国家间经济合作的日新月异，投资取代部分贸易改变了一些要素的配置。只按照最传统的货物出关和入关量来计算进出口额，并进而以这一单一数据来描述国家间的经济关系，很容易得出片面甚至荒唐的结论。

中美的经贸关系除了德意志银行所列出的子公司因素，还有其他诸多很有影响的因素。比如中国经济处在全球价值链的中低端，日韩企业在中国搞组装，然后将产品输往美国，实际上将日韩的部分对美出口计入到中国对美出口中。

还有，中国内地通过香港转口输往美国的产品全被华盛顿统计成中国对美出口，而美国输往中国内地和香港的产品则被美国分别统计，对华出口不包括对香港出口的部分。这无形中进一步扩大了美国逆差。

通常所说的美国对华逆差只针对两国货物贸易，但服务贸易美国是顺差，而且这一顺差增长很快。从2011年到2016年，中国对美服务贸易逆差从67.7亿美元增加到556.9亿美元，年均增幅高达52.4%。

另外中美贸易的获益问题也值得探讨。中国对美货物出口虽然量大，但利润很低，而美国对华出口产品的平均附加值高，收益也更大。很多学者认为，如果综合考虑本地销售、服务贸易、附加值等问题，很难得出美方在中美贸易中吃亏了的肯定结论。中美经贸合作中，贸易顺差在中国，利益顺差在美国。

贸易是互惠的，上述诸多因素决定了中美两国总体上的利益平衡。如果中美贸易真的只有利于中国一方，像特朗普政府描述的那样伤害了美国的话，那么中美贸易这些年不可能是增长的，之前的美国政府早就断然压缩中美贸易规模了。再者，假如通用、苹果等在中国建厂的确对美国不利，那么跨国公司的赚钱之道也要改写了。

现在华盛顿只盯着美方统计的对华贸易逆差数据，对上文所提到的其他统计结果视而不见，我们不认为这是因为美国现政府真的很单纯，无论如何理解不了当下国际经济合作的复杂逻辑。他们更像是了解事情的原委，但故意夸张他们所指问题的严重性，以此压中国等贸易伙伴，试图把美国与世界的贸易关系重新折腾一遍，尽量从各个方向都敲诈一笔，能捞多少捞多少。

中国没有占美国的便宜，说中国对美搞“经济侵略”更是无稽之谈，一些小国惧怕美国，对华盛顿新推出一批霸王条款似有忍气吞声之意。但中国不会。北京定将据理力争，坚决维护中国正当的贸易权利，对于美方挥舞大棒，我方的唯一回答就是也举起自己的大棒，迎头痛击。

我们有充分的自信：中国并不弱。一旦失去中国市场，通用、苹果等都将在全球竞争中处于不利地位，美国的高端服务业也会前景黯淡。中美减少贸易联系，或许短时间内中国比美国的麻烦更多些，但是用不了多久，中国的市场规模就将把美国甩在后头，吃大亏的将是美国企业。

最后我们想说，我们不太相信今天的美国政府有能力把自己国家从各方利益密切交织的国际经济合作体系中摘出来，搞出21世纪傲视全球的孤立主义。毕竟势比人强，正所谓天下大势，浩浩荡荡，唯有顺之者昌。