分析：艾伦·布莱克，2小时前，发布于 2026年3月13日，美国东部时间凌晨5:00
随着2026年冬季转至春季，美国政治正经历着特朗普政府时期经济政策宣传的某种“似曾相识”。
与去年同期极为相似，总统再次一头扎进一项可能动摇本已不稳的经济的重大新举措。同样，政府正要求美国人接受一些“短期阵痛”，以换取承诺的长期收益。
2025年是关税，2026年则是与伊朗的战争。
不过，这一次的推销可能更加困难，至少部分原因是关税政策的后果。政府曾保证关税带来的阵痛最终会带回制造业岗位，并让美国经济蓬勃发展，但这一承诺并未完全兑现，随后美国最高法院裁定特朗普大部分广泛的关税措施非法。
“短期阵痛”说辞的回归
“短期阵痛”显然已成为政府近期的宣传重点。
白宫新闻秘书卡罗琳·利维特称油价上涨是“暂时的”，并补充说推翻伊朗政权将“从长远来看降低油价”。
能源部长克里斯·赖特告诉美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）：“要解决长期问题，你必须经历短期阵痛。”
联合国大使迈克尔·沃尔茨将其描述为“为伊朗不再能将全球能源供应作为人质而付出的一点短期阵痛”。
而特朗普则以最直白的方式表达了这一观点。
周四，他在社交媒体上发文称，阻止伊朗获得核武器“对我而言远比油价上涨重要得多”。
周日他又发文：“短期油价，在伊朗核威胁被消除后将迅速下跌，这对美国和世界的安全与和平而言，是非常小的代价。”
“只有傻瓜才会有不同想法！”他补充道。
这一切听起来与去年极为相似。早在2026年2月，特朗普就职后不久，特朗普及其团队就对其关税政策说了类似的话。
特朗普称这是“一些暂时的短期扰乱”，但表示“人们会理解的”。
“会有一些痛苦吗？是的，可能会（也许不会！），”他发文，接着补充道“这一切都将是值得付出代价的”。
这场战争要求过高
伊朗战争可能很快结束，伊朗通过霍尔木兹海峡扼制全球石油供应的能力可能大幅削弱。但目前看来，这将是一个相当艰巨的过程，除了经济困难，还可能导致更多美国人丧生。
现在要求美国人为此类忍耐恳求，有几个原因。
即便人们愿意忍受短期阵痛，通常也只有当他们相信长期收益既a）真实存在，且b）大于短期阵痛时才会这么做。
正如我周四所写的，与伊朗的战争似乎连这两个条件都不满足。事实上，美国人总体上认为这场战争使美国更不安全。
不知出于何种原因，特朗普政府事先从未花太多时间公开为这场战争建立正当理由，这使得现在要求人们为战争牺牲变得难上加难。
而且美国人也不认为“短期阵痛”会特别短暂；路透社与益普索本周的一项民调显示，67%的美国人预计未来一年油价会更糟。（只有11%的人预计会好转。）
美国人近期已被要求做出诸多牺牲
第二个原因是，近年来美国人已被要求承受诸多短期阵痛。先是疫情，接着是关税，现在是美国二十年来最大的新战争。
而且人们并非在一个他们已经感到经济状况良好的环境中被要求做出牺牲；长期以来，美国人对经济持负面看法。
在某种程度上，道理很简单：美国人可能更希望经济先好转，然后政府再尝试需要此类牺牲的举措。
特朗普盟友史蒂夫·班农最近在其节目中表示：“美国人民在经济问题上，尤其是石油和天然气方面，并非以忍受短期阵痛而闻名。”
关税政策的承诺并未兑现
最后，美国人可能持怀疑态度的原因是，他们一年前就已听到过这些承诺，而政府在长期收益方面并未兑现。
2025年3月，商务部长霍华德·卢特尼克预测到2025年底情况会很好。
他告诉彭博电视：“从第三季度开始，你会感受到唐纳德·特朗普的影响，第四季度你会感受到特朗普经济的力量。”他在福克斯商业频道称：“2025年第四季度，经济将蓬勃发展。”
同月，白宫顾问彼得·纳瓦罗被问及关税需要多久才能将制造业基础带回美国。他回答：“会很快。”
但这些制造业岗位仍未实现。事实上，过去14个月中，美国有13个月失去了制造业岗位。
2025年也是20多年来非衰退时期就业增长最弱的一年，而且就业数据从那以后愈发糟糕。
至于卢特尼克所说的“蓬勃发展”？第四季度国内生产总值（GDP）显著放缓，年化增长率降至1.4%。部分原因是政府停摆，但也受到就业市场停滞的拖累。
尽管通胀率较特朗普上任时有所下降，但仍顽固地维持在2.4%。
如果说关税有可辨别的好处，那就是为政府带来了收入。政府对此表示庆祝。但鉴于关税本质上是一种税收，且主要由美国人承担，这相当于在庆祝增加了多少税收。
或者更直接地说，是在庆祝非法征税了多少。
毕竟，特朗普的全球关税最近被最高法院裁定非法。他可以尝试用其他权力重新实施部分关税，但这些权力赋予他实现长期目标（包括恢复制造业岗位和达成贸易协议）的杠杆更少。换句话说，这一策略可能正在失败。
而目前的总体结果似乎主要是政府非法向民众征收了超过1600亿美元的税款，却未兑现承诺的长期收益。
因此，当政府再次要求人们忍受短期阵痛时，这是一个巨大的要求。
Trump keeps asking Americans to sacrifice — for things they don’t want
Analysis by Aaron Blake, 2 hr ago, PUBLISHED Mar 13, 2026, 5:00 AM ET
As winter turns to spring in 2026, American politics is experiencing a bit of economic-messaging déjà vu from the Trump administration.
Much like last year at this time, the president has leapt headlong into a major new undertaking that threatens to rock an already-wobbly economy. And much like last year, the administration is asking Americans to accept some “short-term pain” for promised long-term gain.
In 2025, it was tariffs. In 2026, it’s the war with Iran.
It might be an even harder sell this time, though, at least in some part because of what happened with the tariffs. The administration’s assurances that the tariff pain would eventually bring back manufacturing jobs and leave the US economy humming didn’t exactly pan out, and then the US Supreme Court ruled a large portion of Trump’s sweeping effort was illegal.
The return of the “short-term pain” talking point
“Short-term pain” has clearly returned as an administration talking point in recent days.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the spike in gas prices “temporary,” adding that taking out the rogue Iranian regime would “result in lower gas prices in the long-term.”
Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNN that “you’ve got to go through short-term pain to solve a long-term problem.”
United Nations Ambassador Michael Waltz pitched it as “a bit of short-term pain for the long-term gain of Iran no longer being able to hold the world’s energy supplies hostage.”
And Trump has offered perhaps the most unvarnished versions of this talking point.
On Thursday, he posted on social media that preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons was “of far greater interest and importance to me” than rising oil prices.
He also posted Sunday: “Short term oil prices, which will drop rapidly when the destruction of the Iran nuclear threat is over, is a very small price to pay for U.S.A., and World, Safety and Peace.”
“ONLY FOOLS WOULD THINK DIFFERENTLY!” he added.
All of this sounds a lot like last year. As early as February, shortly after Trump’s inauguration, Trump and Co. were saying very similar things about his tariffs.
Trump called it “some temporary short-term disruption” but said “people will understand.”
“WILL THERE BE SOME PAIN? YES, MAYBE (AND MAYBE NOT!),” he posted, before adding that “IT WILL ALL BE WORTH THE PRICE THAT MUST BE PAID.”
A lot to ask for this war
It’s certainly possible that the war gets wrapped up rather quickly, and Iran’s ability to choke off the global oil supply via the Strait of Hormuz is significantly diminished. But right now, that looks like it will be a pretty arduous process that could cost even more American lives, in addition to economic hardship.
And it’s asking a lot of Americans to plead for that kind of patience right now, for a few reasons.
Even if people are willing to put up with short-term pain, they generally only do so when they believe the long-term gain is both a) real and b) greater than the short-term pain.
As I wrote Thursday, the war with Iran doesn’t seem to clear either of those bars. In fact, Americans on balance see the war as making the United States less safe.
For whatever reason, the Trump administration never bothered to spend much time publicly building a case for this war beforehand, which now makes it doubly hard to ask people to sacrifice for the war.
And Americans don’t think the “short-term pain” will be particularly short-lived, either; a Reuters-Ipsos poll this week showed 67% of Americans said they expected gas prices to get worse over the next year. (Just 11% expect them to get better.)
Americans have been asked to sacrifice a lot recently
The second reason is that Americans have been asked to endure such short-term pain a lot in recent years. First came the pandemic. Then the tariffs. Now comes the biggest new US war in two decades.
And it’s not like people are being asked to sacrifice in an economy they already feel great about; Americans have been down on the economy for a long time.
At some point, it stands to reason, Americans would probably prefer that the economy get better first — and then the government tries things that require such sacrifice.
“The American people are not known for taking short-term pain when it comes to economics, particularly oil and gas,” Trump ally Steve Bannon said recently on his show.
The tariffs bargain hasn’t exactly paid off
And the final reason Americans might be skeptical is that they’ve been sold these promises before, a year ago. And the administration hasn’t exactly delivered on the long-term side of the ledger.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in March predicted things would be great by the end of 2025.
He told Bloomberg TV that “starting the third quarter, you start to feel some Donald Trump, and in the fourth quarter you will feel the power of Donald Trump’s economy.” He told Fox Business Network, “In the fourth quarter of 2025, this economy is going to be humming.”
That same month, White House adviser Peter Navarro was asked how long until the tariffs brought a manufacturing base back to US shores. He said, “It’s going to be very quick.”
Those manufacturing jobs still haven’t materialized. In fact, the United States has lost manufacturing jobs in 13 of the past 14 months.
The year 2025 was also the weakest year for overall job growth outside of a recession in more than 20 years. And the jobs numbers have gotten worse from there.
As for Lutnick’s “humming” claim? The gross domestic product slowed significantly in the fourth quarter, dropping to an annualized growth rate of 1.4%. Some of that was due to the government shutdown, but it was also weighed down by the stagnant job market.
And while the inflation rate is down somewhat from when Trump took over, it remains stubborn at 2.4%.
If there’s a discernible tariff benefit, it’s the revenue they’ve generated for the government. And the administration has celebrated that. But given tariffs are taxes that are overwhelmingly paid by Americans, it’s basically celebrating how much it raised taxes.
Or, perhaps more to the point, it’s celebrating how much it illegally taxed them.
Trump’s global tariffs were also recently struck down by the Supreme Court, after all. He can try to recreate some of them with other authorities, but those authorities provide him with less leverage to accomplish the long-term gains he set out to do, including restoring manufacturing jobs and striking trade deals. In other words, the gambit could be faltering.
And the sum total of it right now seems to be mostly that the government illegally charged people more than $160 billion, without the long-term deliverables that were promised.
So when the government comes knocking again, asking for people to put up with some short-term pain, it’s a big ask.