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| In the two years since COVID first arrived in the US, Americans have had to get used to things being out of stock. Refrigerators, stoves, washers—at various points, global supply-chain issues have meant that each of these has been tough to come by. But while those stock-outs may have been annoying, Americans today are dealing with a shortage that’s actually serious: a dearth of infant formula. In the first week of May, the national out-of-stock rate for infant formula was 43%, and there’s no sign that things have improved since. And this supply-chain problem is different from those earlier ones in two ways. First, formula is not a product you can afford to wait for. (Babies need to be fed!) Second, this problem is largely self-inflicted.自美国首次发现新冠病毒的两年间，美国人不得不习惯缺货。冰箱、炉灶、洗衣机都出现过缺货，全球供应链问题意味着这些产品都很难到货。尽管这些商品缺货可能令人恼火，但今天的美国人正在应对一个很严重的短缺问题：婴儿配方奶粉缺货。在5月的第一周，婴儿配方奶粉的全美缺货率为43%，此后没有任何有所改善的迹象。婴儿奶粉供应问题与之前的供应链问题有两个区别。首先，配方奶粉是等不了的产品。（婴儿需要喂奶！）其次，这个问题主要是美国“咎由自取”。 |
| The numbers behind the crisis are pretty straightforward. Three companies—Abbott, Mead, and Nestle—account for the vast majority of formula sold in the US, and Abbott alone has more than 40% of the market—and 98% of the formula sold in the US is made in the US In other words, there is essentially no foreign competition. While countries like Germany and Switzerland have robust infant-formula industries, their companies sell almost nothing here directly.这场危机背后的数字一目了然。雅培、美赞臣和雀巢三家公司占据了在美国销售的绝大多数配方奶粉，仅雅培一家就拥有40%以上的市场份额，而在美国销售的98%的配方奶粉是在美国制造的。换句话说，基本上没有外国竞争。虽然德国和瑞士等国家拥有强大的婴儿配方奶粉行业，但它们的公司在美国几乎没有直接销售任何产品。 |
| That system starts with tariffs. Imported baby formula is subject to a tariff that’s typically 17.5%. On top of that, there’s an abstruse tariff-rate quota system, which means that once a certain amount of formula is imported from a country, it gets slapped with an extra tariff in addition to the original one. So any foreign-formula manufacturer who wants to sell its products in the US is going to be at a serious cost disadvantage to the Abbotts of the world.这一体系从关税开始。进口婴儿配方奶粉的关税通常为17.5%。除此之外，还有一套复杂的关税率配额制度，这意味着一旦从一国进口的配方奶粉达到一定数量，就会在原来的配方奶粉关税基础上再加征额外关税。因此，任何想在美国销售其产品的外国配方奶粉制造商都将在成本上严重高于雅培。 |
| None of this is because European infant formula doesn’t meet US standards: A 2019 study of 13 brands found that all of them met 15 out of 16 nutritional requirements. Indeed, the EU has its own nutritional requirements, which have actually been updated more frequently than those in the US.这些限制都不是因为欧洲婴儿配方奶粉不符合美国标准：2019年对13个品牌的研究发现，所有品牌都符合16个营养要求中的15个(由于配方的标注方式，该研究的作者无法衡量这些品牌是否符合美国对亚油酸的要求标准）。事实上，欧盟有自己的营养要求标准，实际上比美国的营养要求更新得更频繁。 |
| It should be said that the motivation behind the FDA requirements is understandable. But in practical terms, the concern with safety has become a recipe for protecting the current oligopoly of formula manufacturers in the US And this is not a problem only in the infant-formula market. You can see a similar phenomenon at work in the generic-drug market, where FDA rules often mean that US consumers have only one choice of drug—and have to pay through the nose for it—even when there are multiple versions of the drug being made in Europe. 应该说，FDA提出这些要求背后的动机是可以理解的。但实际上，对安全的担忧已成为保护美国配方奶粉制造商当前寡头垄断的一种方法，而这不仅仅是婴儿配方奶粉市场的问题。你可以在非专利药市场上看到类似的现象，FDA的规定通常意味着美国消费者只有一种药物选择，即使在欧洲生产多个版本的药物，也必须为其支付高昂的费用。 |
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