The Rose Garden is a bucolic place. On April 2nd it was the scene of a massacre. Just after 4 o'clock President Donald Trump walked out of the White House and swung a hammer at the global trading system. He announced sweeping reciprocal tariffs against all of America's biggest trading partners). Companies around the world are scrambling to respond. American ones have PTSD.

玫瑰花园是一个田园诗般的地方。 4月2日，这里却上演了一场“贸易屠杀”。 4点刚过，唐纳德·特朗普总统走出白宫，朝着全球贸易体系抡起了“大锤”。 他宣布对美国所有最大的贸易伙伴全面加征对等关税。 世界各地的企业都在匆忙做出回应。 美国的企业甚至出现了“创伤后应激障碍”。

When in his inaugural address on January 20th Mr Trump promised that "the golden age of America begins right now," the business world bought the glittering talk. Bosses were counting on lower taxes, less red tape and buoyant American consumers. Between election day in November and the swearing-in, the Russell 3000 index, which covers most of America's public companies, rose by 5%. The resulting $2.4 trillion in new shareholder value was equivalent to the entire Indian stockmarket with two Mexican bourses thrown in. America was first. No one came remotely close.

1月20日，特朗普在就职演说中承诺“美国的黄金时代此刻开启”， 商业界听信了他这番华丽的说辞。 企业的老板们盼望着能有更低的赋税、更少的繁琐手续，以及消费热情高涨的美国消费者。 从11月选举日到宣誓就职期间，涵盖美国大部分上市公司的罗素3000指数上涨了5%。 由此产生的2.4万亿美元新股东价值，相当于整个印度股市加上两家墨西哥交易所的价值。 美国遥遥领先， 其他国家远远落后。

A month into Mr Trump's second term America was even firster. By February 19th the Russell 3000 had added another $1.4 trillion in market capitalisation, reaching a record $63 trillion. Scott Bessent, a comfortingly buttoned-down hedge-fund billionaire, was in charge of the Treasury. Another financier, Howard Lutnick, was installed as commerce secretary. Elon Musk's engineering genius would make the gummed-up bureaucracy run as efficiently as his Tesla assembly lines. Could things get any sparklier?

在特朗普第二任期的一个月里，美国更是“领先中的领先”。 截至2月19日，罗素3000指数的市值又增加了1.4万亿美元，达到创纪录的63万亿美元。 斯科特·贝森特是一位性格保守、行事严谨的对冲基金亿万富翁，负责财政部。 另一位金融大亨霍华德·卢特尼克被任命为商务部长。 埃隆·马斯克凭借其卓越的工程才华，有望让这个混乱的官僚机构像他的特斯拉装配线一样高效运转。 事情还能变得更精彩吗？

It turns out they couldn't. In the past six weeks the sheen has come right off the Trump economy. Mr Musk's efficiency drive is gutting the federal workforce willy-nilly. In February alone more than 62,000 government employees got the sack, according to a monthly tally by Challenger, a recruitment firm. Private-sector employers, among them household names like Meta and John Deere, announced 110,000 job cuts, compared with 82,000 the year before. Consumer sentiment is collapsing. And instead of tax cuts America is now getting a giant hike in the form of tariffs.

事实证明他们做不到。 在过去的6周里，特朗普执政的经济光环已然褪去。 马斯克先生的政府效率部正肆意地裁减联邦政府工作人员。 据招聘公司Challenger的月度统计，仅在2月份，就有6.2万多名政府职员被解雇。 包括Meta和John Deere等家喻户晓的私营企业宣布裁员11万人，而前一年裁员8.2万人。 消费者信心正在崩溃。 美国如今非但没有迎来减税，反而以关税的形式大幅增加了税费。

Wall Street is on recession watch. Even before the tariffs Goldman Sachs raised the odds of one from 20% to 35%. On April 3rd Deutsche Bank said they "could easily knock" up to 1.5 percentage points off American GDP growth this year. UBS thinks it could be two percentage points. Businesses are feeling miserable. When markets closed on April 2nd, two in three members of the Russell 3000 were worth less than they before his re-election. When they reopen on April 3rd, after we published this, that ratio may rise. A golden age? For short-sellers, maybe, or for pedlars of gold.

华尔街正在密切关注经济是否会陷入衰退。 早在关税实施前，高盛就已把美国经济衰退的几率从20%提升至35%。 4月3日，德意志银行称这些关税“极有可能轻易地”让美国今年的GDP增长率降低1.5个百分点之多。 瑞银认为可能是两个百分点。 企业的日子很不好过。 4月2日股市收盘时，罗素3000指数的成分股中，有2/3的企业市值低于特朗普再次当选前的水平。 在我们刊发这篇内容之后，4月3日股市重新开盘，这一比例可能还会攀升。 黄金时代？ 也许对卖空投资者，或者对于黄金交易者来说，算是吧。

What about anyone else? Picking business winners is foolhardy—and foolish given how chaotic the second Trump administration was probably always going to be. Schumpeter should know. After the election he confidently predicted that American companies would outdo non-American ones and that, within America Inc, small firms would have a better time than corporate giants.

对于其他人呢？ 预测并找出商业赢家是鲁莽之举——而且考虑到特朗普的第二任期大概率一直都会是混乱不堪的状态，预测就更愚蠢了。 熊彼特应该很清楚这一点。 大选之后，他曾信心满满地预测，美国公司的表现会胜过非美国公司，并且在美国企业群体中， 小公司的发展境遇会比那些企业巨头更好。

Investors are instead souring on America, and its corporate tiddlers in particular. The Russell 2000 index of small companies lost 8% of its value between January and April 2nd, more than twice as much as the S&P 500, which tracks the biggest. It also fell more sharply in post-tariff late trading. The swooning stocks of small firms, whose fortunes are tied to the domestic economy, are pricing in a "pretty nasty" downturn, says Steven DeSanctis of Jefferies, another bank. In contrast, share prices are still up this year in Europe (where policymakers want to stoke growth rather than extinguish it) .-

相反，投资者对美国尤其是其小企业感到不满。 追踪小型企业的罗素2000指数在 1 月至 4 月 2 日期间市值缩水了 8%，跌幅是追踪大型企业的标准普尔 500指数的两倍多。 在关税后尾盘交易中也出现了更大的跌幅。 小企业的命运与国内经济息息相关，其股价暴跌，它们正在陷入“相当严重”的低迷， 另一家银行杰富瑞银行的史蒂文·德桑蒂斯表示。 相比之下，欧洲的股价今年仍在上涨（欧洲的政策制定者希望刺激增长，而不是扼杀增长）。