2026-04-17 美国东部时间下午12:59 / 美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）
特约撰稿人 艾伦·布莱克
在伊朗冲突初期，特朗普团队曾试图向美国民众推销“短期阵痛换长期利好”的经济论调，而如今总统唐纳德·特朗普及其团队愈发回归以往的姿态：正如凯文·贝肯在《动物屋》里的台词。
他们实则在说：保持冷静，一切安好。
这一论调在冲突爆发前就令人费解且风险重重，如今更是如此。
他们早在去年秋季就用过类似说法。即便民众对经济负担的担忧日益加剧，特朗普仍坚称物价实际在下跌——而且跌幅可观，尽管事实并非如此。
如今，他们的论调更像是：不管选民听到了什么（或是在当地加油站看到的景象），实际情况都相当不错。更何况，情况本可能糟糕得多。
“说实话，我们的表现好极了，”特朗普在周三播出的接受福克斯商业频道主持人玛丽亚·巴尔蒂罗莫采访时说道，他援引了 resilient（此处结合语境译为“韧性十足”）的股市表现。
当巴尔蒂罗莫稍加反驳时，特朗普辩称，每桶92美元的油价并不算太糟，毕竟当时有人曾预测油价会涨到每桶200美元。
“你知道吗？”特朗普补充道，“我非常开心。”
周四，特朗普在白宫外以及拉斯维加斯一场聚焦减税的竞选活动中，进一步阐述了这种相当乐观的论调。
他称通胀率“处于极低水平，且仍将维持低位”。尽管上月通胀率已攀升至两年来的峰值，且随着冲突持续影响，通胀预计还会继续上升。他还提及“我们伟大的经济”。
当被问及每加仑4美元的油价时，他提到了股市，并表示：“一切都进展得非常顺利。”
他再次称，与“本应达到的水平”相比，油价“不算很高”。（美国能源部长克里斯·赖特一个月前对美国全国广播公司新闻频道表示，夏季前油价“极有可能”降至每加仑3美元以下。）
特朗普还称通胀是“虚假的”，因为它是由燃油和能源价格上涨导致的。
“我第一任期内，美国经济曾是有史以来最好的，”特朗普补充道，“而现在我们正在把它推向新高度——我们正在彻底超越过去的表现。”
其他官员似乎也持相同看法。
白宫新闻发言人卡罗琳·莱维特在本周的新闻发布会上敦促民众“看看自本届总统上任以来，油价在过去一年里下跌了多少”。但这一数据其实并不亮眼：根据Gas Buddy的数据，特朗普就职时油价约为每加仑3.11美元，冲突爆发时油价仅下跌了不到11美分。
财政部长斯科特·贝森特本周在接受美国消费者新闻与商业频道（CNBC）采访时表示，特朗普能够发起这场冲突，是因为“经济状况非常好”。他还在与莱维特共同出席的新闻发布会上称，经济目前仍“非常强劲”。
在纳税日接受《全国新闻台》采访时，贝森特发表了一些尤其引人侧目言论。
他猜测，美国人实际上比他们表面表现出的更看好经济。
“消费者虽然嘴上说得悲观，但实际上相当乐观，”他以消费行为作为依据说道。
当记者指出贝森特是在说人们感觉不佳，但实际消费信心充足时，他表示并非如此。他猜测，美国人实际上对经济感觉良好，即便他们不会这么说。
“好吧，看看他们内心深处，他们其实感觉不错，”贝森特说道，“我不确定他们在跟民调机构的人说些什么。”
贝森特的观点并非完全无的放矢。
正如CNN记者大卫·戈德曼在2月冲突爆发前不久所写的那样，有人可以辩称，经济基本面并不像美国人看起来认为的那样糟糕。后新冠时代，消费者支出一直相当强劲。
股市持续上涨——如今已收复冲突初期的跌幅——似乎印证了这一点。
但拜登政府也曾在通胀率下降后提出过类似论调，这在2024年并未给他们带来好结果，前总统乔·拜登的经济支持率大幅下滑。
因此，如果贝森特的论调如今成为指导原则，那将是一个非常冒险的做法。因为美国人正在向那些“民调机构的人”表达一些非常“悲观”的看法。
近期，备受关注的密歇根大学消费者信心指数创下了数十年以来的历史新低——数据追溯至二战刚结束时期。
如今该指数不仅低于新冠疫情后通胀飙升时期，也低于2000年代末大衰退时期，以及20世纪后半叶多次经济困难时期的水平。
民调也反映出这种悲观情绪。
例如，3月底最新的CNN民调显示，仅有23%的美国人认为经济至少“还算不错”。这一比例仅在拜登任期内的2022年短暂出现过两次更低的数值。
该民调还显示：
- 62%的受访者预计未来一年经济将持续低迷——这是CNN近30年来民调中最糟糕的结果。
- 超过六成的民众认为上涨的油价至少构成“中等程度的生活负担”
- 超过六成的民众表示，他们已经在某个方面改变了消费习惯。
或许更能说明问题的是，65%至25%的美国人认为特朗普恶化了经济状况，而非改善了经济。
这一负40个百分点的差距不仅比拜登任内的任何时候都更糟；也比1月时的负23个百分点大幅恶化。
冲突显然让经济成为了特朗普的不利因素。或许随着冲突结束，这种情况会有所改观。
但尽管有大量相反证据，且民众对经济有着根深蒂固的负面看法，试图说服选民经济实际上状况良好，这似乎并非高明的策略。
唐纳德·特朗普总统于4月11日在迈阿密国际机场走下空军一号后，向媒体记者竖起大拇指。
塔索斯·卡托波迪斯/盖蒂图片社
The Trump team’s puzzling ‘all is well’ message on the economy
2026-04-17 12:59 PM ET / CNN
Analysis by
Aaron Blake
After spending the early part of the Iran war trying to sell Americans on an economic message of short-term pain for long-term gain, President Donald Trump and his team have increasingly reverted to their previous posture: that of Kevin Bacon in “Animal House.”
Remain calm, they’re effectively saying. All is well.
It was a puzzling and dicey political message before the war; it’s even more puzzling and dicey now.
They used a version of this message in the fall. Even as affordability concerns increasingly lingered as a problem for Trump, he set about arguing that prices were actually down — and substantially so — even though they weren’t.
Today, the message is more: Despite what voters are hearing (or seeing at any local gas station), things are actually quite good. And besides, the situation could’ve been way worse.
“To be honest, we are doing so well,” Trump told Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo in an interview that aired Wednesday, citing a resilient stock market.
When Bartiromo pushed back a little, Trump argued that $92-per-barrel oil wasn’t so bad when you consider some were talking about $200 per barrel.
“And you know what?” Trump added. “I’m very happy.”
Trump expanded on this rather optimistic line on Thursday, both outside the White House and during a campaign event in Las Vegas focused on tax cuts.
He said the inflation rate was “a very low number, and it’s still low.” This despite it spiking to its highest level in two years last month — and it’s expected to keep rising as the war’s effects linger. He referred to “our great economy.”
When asked about $4-per-gallon gas, he mentioned the stock market and said: “Everything’s doing really well.”
He again said that gas prices were “not very high” compared to “what they were supposed to be.” (Energy Secretary Chris Wright told NBC News just a month ago that there was “a very good chance” gas would be under $3 per gallon by the summer.)
Trump also called inflation “fake,” because it was due to rising fuel and energy prices.
“We had the best economy in the history of our country my first term,” Trump added. “And we’re blowing it out now — we’re blowing it away now.”
Others seem to be on the same page.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt in a briefing this week urged people to “look at how gas prices decreased over the past year since this president was in office.” Even that isn’t exactly an impressive stat: Gas was about $3.11 per gallon when Trump was inaugurated, according to data from Gas Buddy; it had declined by little more than 10 cents when the war launched.
And Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC this week that Trump was able to launch the war because the “economy was in such good shape.” He also said at a briefing with Leavitt that the economy remains “very strong.”
And in a Tax Day interview with the National News Desk, Bessent offered some particularly eyebrow-raising comments.
He wagered that Americans are actually more sanguine about the economy than they let on.
“The consumer, while they may be sounding grim, is actually quite buoyant,” he said, citing spending behavior.
When the reporter submitted that Bessent was saying people didn’t feel good but were actually acting confidently, he indicated it wasn’t even that. He wagered that people actually do feel good about the economy, even if they don’t say that.
“Well, look in their heart of hearts, they feel good,” Bessent said. “I’m not sure what they’re telling the survey people.”
Bessent isn’t totally freelancing here.
There is an argument to be made that the economic fundamentals aren’t nearly as grim as Americans seem to believe, as CNN’s David Goldman wrote shortly before the war began in February. Consumer spending has remained pretty robust in the post-Covid era.
The fact that the stock market keeps rising — and has now recovered its losses from early in the war — seems to speak to that.
But the Biden administration made similar arguments after the inflation rate came down, which didn’t work out so well for them in 2024, as former President Joe Biden’s approval numbers on the economy tanked.
So to the extent Bessent’s argument is now a guiding principle, it’s a really risky one. Because Americans are telling those “survey people” some really “grim” things.
Recently, the much-watched University of Michigan consumer sentiment index hit a new record low in data that spans decades — back to just after World War II.
It’s now lower not only than it was during the post-Covid inflation spike, but also during the Great Recession in the late 2000s and during various other times of economic hardship in the latter half of the 20th Century.
And polling echoes that pessimism.
The most recent CNN poll from late March, for instance, showed just 23% of Americans labeled the economy as at least “somewhat good.” That number was lower only twice during Biden’s tenure, for a brief period in 2022.
The poll also showed:
- 62% expected the economy to remain poor over the next year — the worst such finding in nearly three decades of CNN polling.
- More than 6 in 10 people labeled rising gas prices at least a “moderate hardship”
- More than 6 in 10 said they’d changed their spending habits in one way or another.
And perhaps more to the point, Americans said 65%-25% that Trump had worsened economic conditions rather than made them better.
That minus-40-point gap isn’t just worse than it ever was for Biden; it’s also significantly worse than it was in January, when Trump was only minus-23.
The war has clearly made the economy more of a liability for Trump. Maybe that starts to go away if the war does.
But trying to convince voters that the economy is actually good, despite the significant evidence to the contrary and their very ingrained negative feelings about it, doesn’t seem like a great strategy.
President Donald Trump gives a thumbs up to members of the media after walking off of Air Force One at Miami International Airport, on April 11.
Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
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