Globalization 2.0's Hidden Truth: Mutual Harm, Deep Imbalances, and the American Backlash

全球化2.0的真相：从“跟美国富裕论”到“美国吃亏损论”

——以共生经济学重释特利芬难题与罗德里克悖论

Reinterpreting the Triffin Dilemma and Rodrik Trilemma through Symbionomics

钱宏（Archer Hong Qian）

二战结束，全球进入了长达八十年的“全球化2.0”阶段。其间的经济格局与权力逻辑，若用两句通俗话语概括，可谓：

一句是邓小平1979年提出的“跟美国富裕论”；

一句是川普2016年指出的“美国吃大亏损论”或“占美国便宜论”。

但过去四十多年的世界贸易实况显示，“跟美国富裕论”与“美国吃大亏论”，存在很大现实冲突，全球化2.0，给世界注入经济动能的同时，还客观存在一种“互害机制”，必须加以纠偏（参见：Archer Hong Qian《告别自由贸易乌托邦，交互参与全球化3.0》，http://symbiosism.com.cn/9907.html）。

一、邓小平的“富裕论”：中国式崛起的现实支撑

邓小平所倡“跟美国走、搞开放就会富起来”，在中国40余年发展历程中被验证得毋庸置疑。从贫穷落后到经济总量逐步超越英、法、德、日，成为世界第二大经济体，中国的确是“跟美国富裕论”的最大受益者。

二、川普的“吃亏论”：全球化2.0的结构性反弹

相较之下，川普提出的“美国吃亏了”虽也属事实，却在国际和国内引发巨大争议，甚至招来“刻舟求剑”式的主流经济学家和普世价值论者的一片叫骂（可谓“集体沦陷”）。

尽管如此，作为美国民选总统，商人+军人（上尉军校生）+政坛新手的川普，必须直面这一结构性困境，并给出切实解方。

川普的答案是：撇开“政治正确”与僵化的主流经济学理论，而是从“对等关税”（Reciprocal Tariffs）着手，以对外促谈判、对内减税赋能，重构美国生产关系，激发人民的生命自组织连接力。

三、“占美国便宜”的三类国家：川普区分对待，有理有据

具体而言，那些“占了美国便宜”的国家并非一概而论，而可细分为三类：

1、结构性失衡型
这些国家经济上富裕了，但财富主要集中在权贵阶层，普通民众获益有限，健康和消费能力未见同步提升。
中国大陆是典型案例。学者秦晖早已指出，与日、韩、台、新等“外向型经济”国家不同，中国并未形成普遍富裕社会。川普政府称之为“结构性失衡”，贸易战正是为了推动中国向“消费驱动、普遍富裕”的健康结构转型。

2、福利主义负担型
富裕之后实行高税收、高福利政策，以此维系内部社会平衡，但对外经济行为却依赖美国开放市场。
加拿大、德国、法国、澳大利亚、英国等美国传统盟友即属此列。川普不仅主张对等关税，还要求它们增强国防自主，特别在“俄乌战争”背景下。

3、普遍富裕型
富裕后未陷入“权贵专享”或“高福利陷阱”，形成全民受益型的市场经济结构。
如台湾、日本、韩国、新加坡及波兰、波罗的海三国，在政治清廉、市场活力、社会均富等方面表现突出。

无论是4月2日“解放日”公布的万国关税，还是川普7月7日至12日对各国陆续发出关税函，显示出“因国施策、区别对待”的战略逻辑，丝毫不乱，足见其政策设计背后的章法与理性。

四、根源问题：特利芬难题与罗德里克悖论

要真正理解全球化2.0“美国吃亏”现象的结构根源，必须从两个经典悖论入手：

• 特利芬难题（Triffin Dilemma）：
  美国作为世界货币发行国，为满足全球美元流通的需要，必须长期保持贸易赤字。2024年，美国贸易赤字达1.2万亿美元；与此同时，金融业平均年薪超15万美元，而制造业工人仅约5万美元，收入差距加剧，基尼系数达0.48，社会撕裂严重。

• 罗德里克悖论（Rodrik Trilemma）：
  一个国家的“民主人权”、“国家主权”与“自由贸易/超级全球化”三者，不可能同时成立。必须放弃其一，否则就会出现制度虚假或功能受损的后果。

中国正是典型例证：其低成本+补贴+洗产地的出口策略，在非自由贸易体制下攫取红利，推动GDP增长，却以牺牲劳工权益与贸易对象利益为代价。

欧洲则因坚持自由贸易与欧盟统一市场，被迫放弃部分国家主权，英国最终选择脱欧以捍卫主权。

五、破解之道：川普与米莱的结构性突破

面对这两大困局，川普与米莱的政策思路堪称结构性突破：

• 川普总统：主张提高政府效率、对外实施对等关税以促成贸易谈判，对内则通过“轻徭薄赋”释放民众活力，修复制造业，重构分配机制；

• 阿根廷总统米莱：则以“反特权”和“货币自由化、多元化”为抓手，主动打破国内官僚垄断和货币依赖结构，重建市场自组织活力。

两位领导人虽处不同国情，却都直面“全球化2.0互害机制”的结构病根，追求主权回归、经济重建、自由与责任的再平衡。

特别是川普的关税策略，适度让渡或打破“超级自由贸易”的幻想，换取国家主权与民权的重建。这是对“自由贸易乌托邦”的现实性纠偏，也是迈向“全球化3.0”的必要前提。

六、共生经济学（Symbionomics）：走出悖论的思想之路

共生经济学指出，破解“特利芬难题”与“罗德里克悖论”的关键，不在关税本身，而在于经济学思维方式的根本转变——主流经济学与奥地利学派，皆须反思其经济增长假设前提，是否健康？

白宫顾问彼得·纳瓦罗（Peter Navarro）曾一语中的指出：

经典贸易条件下
商品价格 = 成本 + 利润

三元悖论条件下
商品价格 = 成本 + 利润 + 作弊红利

所谓“作弊红利”，包括政府补贴、汇率操纵、知识产权盗窃、血汗工厂等，在自由贸易外衣下掠夺型获利。即使以单纯经济“增长黄金率”（菲尔普斯）创造GDP来衡量，似乎也没有什么问题。但是，以经济“健康黄金率”（钱宏）观之，显然存在诸般“结构性失衡”问题，并产生“外溢效应”，这就是“美国吃亏论”的根源。

川普实施的“高关税”本质上是“对等减半”并杜绝“洗产地”等规范贸易策略，其真正打击的是“作弊红利”而非成本本身——增加的关税收入可抵消成本上升，部分产业回流，可提高就业增强产品出口，达成贸易平衡。正如纳瓦罗所言，某国占美国便宜越多，越有能力“消化”这些关税，从而反向为美国财政与人民造福。

已经达成的《美英贸易恊议》和《美越贸易恊议》就是这一思维的产物，而且具有示范效应。随着《大美丽法案》（减税与开支法案）的正式实施，不仅能化解“跟美国富裕论”与“美国吃亏论”的冲突，而且大概迎来美国及世界经济的大繁荣。

顺便说一句，以共生经济学（Symbionomics）观之，发现“商品价格 = 成本 + 利润 + 作弊红利”律的白宫顾问彼得·纳瓦罗似应获得诺贝尔经济学奖！

七、迈向全球化3.0：解构互害机制，重建共生秩序

川普的对等关税（Reciprocal Tariffs），短期内提升财政收入，但其长期战略意义在于：

• 推动全球贸易回归公平互惠

• 打破全球化2.0中“强权掠夺—结构失衡—道德虚伪”的三角陷阱

• 引导世界各经济体迈向生命自组织连接平衡与再平衡“交互主体共生”的全球化3.0新秩序

正如共生经济学的“经济健康黄金律”所昭示，真正可持续的经济，不是以无限增长为目标，而是以人的身心灵健康为尺度，以生产回归生活、生活呈现生态、生态激励生命为路径，实现全球经济与政治的再平衡。

2025年7月13日于Vancouver

Globalization 2.0's Hidden Truth: Mutual Harm, Deep Imbalances, and the American Backlash

Reinterpreting the Triffin Dilemma and Rodrik Trilemma through Symbionomics

By Archer Hong Qian

After World War II, the world entered an eighty-year phase of “Globalization 2.0.”
The economic patterns and power logic during this period can be summed up in two plainspoken statements:

• One is Deng Xiaoping’s 1979 assertion: “Getting rich by following America.”

• The other is Donald Trump’s 2016 claim: “America is suffering major losses” or “Others are taking advantage of the U.S.”

However, over the past four decades of global trade, there has been a significant contradiction between these two assertions. While Globalization 2.0 did inject economic momentum into the world, it also objectively created a mutual harm mechanism, which must now be corrected.
(See: Archer Hong Qian, Farewell to the Free Trade Utopia: Toward Participatory Globalization 3.0, http://symbiosism.com.cn/9907.html)

I. Deng Xiaoping’s “Getting Rich” Theory: The Chinese Path to Prosperity

Deng Xiaoping’s notion that “by following the United States and opening up, we will become rich” has been undeniably validated throughout China's development over the past 40 years. From poverty and backwardness to becoming the world’s second-largest economy—surpassing the U.K., France, Germany, and Japan—China has clearly been the greatest beneficiary of this theory.

II. Trump’s “Being Taken Advantage Of” Theory: A Structural Rebound of Globalization 2.0

By contrast, Trump’s assertion that “America is being taken advantage of” is also factual, yet it sparked widespread controversy both at home and abroad. It drew fierce criticism from mainstream economists and universalist ideologues—an almost collective backlash akin to “carving a mark on a moving boat.”

Nonetheless, as a democratically elected president of the United States—businessman, military officer (West Point cadet captain), and political outsider—Trump had to confront this structural dilemma and offer a practical solution.

His answer was: to break away from “political correctness” and rigid mainstream economic theories, and instead begin with “Reciprocal Tariffs”—to promote foreign negotiations externally, reduce taxes internally, restructure America’s production relations, and activate the people’s self-organizing connectivity.

III. Three Types of Countries “Taking Advantage of the U.S.”: Trump’s Case-by-Case Strategy

Specifically, the countries that have “taken advantage of the United States” are not all the same and can be divided into three types:

1. Structural Imbalance Type
   These countries have grown economically wealthy, but the wealth has mainly flowed to elites, while ordinary citizens have gained little. Health and consumption capacity have not improved in tandem.
   Mainland China is a typical example. Scholar Qin Hui pointed out that unlike other export-oriented economies like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore, China has not achieved broad-based prosperity. The Trump administration labeled this as “structural imbalance,” and the trade war aimed to shift China toward a healthier structure driven by domestic consumption and widespread affluence.

2. Welfare Burden Type
   These countries have implemented high-tax, high-welfare policies to maintain internal social stability but rely on the U.S. for open markets and security protection.
   Examples include traditional American allies such as Canada, Germany, France, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Trump not only advocated for reciprocal tariffs but also demanded that these nations enhance their national defense capabilities, especially in the context of the Russia–Ukraine war.

3. Broad-Based Prosperity Type
   These countries have become wealthy without falling into the traps of elite capture or excessive welfare, forming market economies that benefit all citizens.
   Examples include Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Poland, and the Baltic States.
   From July 7 to 12, Trump issued a series of tariff letters to different countries, demonstrating a strategic logic of “country-specific measures and differentiated treatment.” Far from being chaotic, this approach reflects a well-structured policy design.

IV. The Root Problems: The Triffin Dilemma and Rodrik Trilemma

To truly understand the structural roots of the “America is suffering” phenomenon in Globalization 2.0, we must start with two classic dilemmas:

• Triffin Dilemma
  As the issuer of the world’s reserve currency, the U.S. must run long-term trade deficits to meet global demand for dollars.
  In 2024, the U.S. trade deficit reached $1.2 trillion. At the same time, the average annual salary in the financial sector exceeded $150,000, while manufacturing workers earned only about $50,000. Income inequality worsened, with a Gini coefficient of 0.48, signaling serious social fragmentation.

• Rodrik Trilemma
  A country cannot simultaneously achieve democracy and human rights, national sovereignty, and free trade/hyper-globalization. One of the three must be abandoned, or else one becomes false or dysfunctional.
  China is a classic case: its export strategy of low costs, subsidies, and origin-washing seizes non-free trade gains, boosts GDP, but sacrifices labor rights and harms its trade partners.
  Europe, in its insistence on free trade and EU market integration, has had to relinquish part of its national sovereignty. The U.K. ultimately chose Brexit to reclaim its autonomy.

V. The Way Out: Trump and Milei’s Structural Breakthrough

Faced with these two dilemmas, the policy trajectories of Trump and Argentina’s President Milei represent structural breakthroughs:

• President Trump advocates for improving government efficiency, implementing reciprocal tariffs to drive trade negotiations, and reducing internal tax burdens to energize citizens, restore manufacturing, and restructure income distribution.

• President Milei of Argentina takes “anti-privilege” and “monetary liberalization and diversification” as his tools, actively breaking the domestic monopoly of bureaucracy and dependency on sovereign currency, to restore the self-organizing vitality of markets.

Though in different national contexts, both leaders directly confront the structural root of the mutual harm mechanism of Globalization 2.0. Their vision: restoring sovereignty, rebuilding the economy, and rebalancing freedom and responsibility.

Trump’s tariff strategy, in particular, intentionally surrenders or dismantles the illusion of hyper-globalization, in exchange for rebuilding national sovereignty and civil rights. It is a reality-based correction of the “free trade utopia,” and a necessary prerequisite for entering Globalization 3.0.

VI. Symbionomics: A Philosophical Path Beyond the Dilemmas

Symbionomics asserts that the key to solving the Triffin Dilemma and the Rodrik Trilemma lies not in tariffs themselves, but in a fundamental transformation of economic thinking. Both mainstream and Austrian economics must reexamine the foundational assumption of economic growth: is it truly healthy?

White House advisor Peter Navarro incisively pointed out:

Traditional pricing of goods = Cost + Profit
Cheating countries’ pricing today = Cost + Profit + Cheating Bonus

This “cheating bonus” includes government subsidies, currency manipulation, intellectual property theft, and sweatshops under state supervision—all masked by the rhetoric of free trade. Even if one uses the “Golden Rule of Growth” (Phelps) to measure GDP, there may appear to be no problem.
But viewed through the lens of the Golden Rule of Economic Health (Archer Hong Qian), structural imbalances and externalities abound—this is the true source of Trump’s “America is being taken advantage of” theory.

Trump’s so-called “high tariffs” are essentially reciprocal halving, paired with measures to eliminate origin-washing and regulate trade. What they target is not cost, but the cheating bonus. The increased tariff revenue offsets rising costs, encourages industrial reshoring, boosts employment, and restores trade balance.

As Navarro stated, the more a country exploits the U.S., the more it can absorb these tariffs—thus benefitting U.S. fiscal health and the American people.

The recently concluded U.S.–U.K. Trade Agreement and U.S.–Vietnam Trade Agreement are both products of this strategic thinking, and they hold significant demonstrative value.
With the formal implementation of the One Big Beautiful Bill (Tax Cut and Spending Act), the contradiction between “getting rich by following America” and “America suffers losses” may finally be resolved—ushering in a period of great prosperity for both the U.S. and the world.

As a side note, from the perspective of Symbionomics, Peter Navarro—who uncovered the formula Price = Cost + Profit + Cheating Bonus—deserves the Nobel Prize in Economics!

VII. Toward Globalization 3.0: Dismantling the Harm, Rebuilding Symbiotic Order

Trump’s Reciprocal Tariffs, though yielding short-term fiscal gains, carry long-term strategic significance:

• They push global trade back toward fairness and reciprocity;

• They dismantle the triangular trap of “powerful predation – structural imbalance – moral hypocrisy” under Globalization 2.0;

• They guide all economies toward Globalization 3.0—based on intersubjective symbiosis and the balanced, self-organizing connectivity of life.

As the Golden Rule of Economic Health in Symbionomics suggests, a truly sustainable economy does not pursue infinite growth, but rather measures prosperity by the ongoing well-being of the body, mind, and spirit.

The rebalancing of global political and economic systems begins with this structural correction.

Vancouver, July 13, 2025