DOnald Trump The tariffs move in global trading. However, the President’s tariff-Manie is far from unprecedented in American history. The last time the tariffs of this scale were introduced after the passage of the 1930 tariff, better known as Smoot-Hawley tariff. The bill triggered a trade war between America and its allies, deepened depression and caused the world to disintegrate into competing blocks. EconomistNews from the time of offer in the deposit story of protectionism.
Senator Reed Smoot, “One of the most active tariffs Bourbons” (left) and representative of Willis Hawley (Center)
Image: Topfoto
When Herbert Hoover, Republican, Republican was elected in 1928, he eager for American agriculture. The revival of agriculture in Europe after the First World War meant that products now with American production. In 1929, two Republicans – Reed Smoot, Senator of Utah and Willis Hawley, Congressman of Oregon – proposed a bill to raise taxes on imports of agriculture. In particular, they influenced Canada as the largest American business partner:
“… Since the United States is a much richer and more populous country, a change in Customs in Washington’s customs policy was important for Canada than the Ottawa changes would be measured for the Great Republic. In the past, Canadians had considerable experience with the uncertainty of American tariff policies and came to power. Washington.
Canadians would have the planting of time to watch when the law spent 18 months of courage between the House of House and the Senate. As the depression deepened, more and more industries were lobbies at Congress to add protection to the bill and feed it. With this, the Canadian application for retaliation grew. In 1930, Mackenzie King, a liberal prime minister, raised tariffs to America and reduced them for the rest of the British Empire.
More than 1,000 US economists and many traders’ leaders begged Hoover to veto the account. Concerns about its economic consequences, we said, were “mainly responsible for the most difficult fall of the year in Wall Street”. But on June 17, 1930, Hoover signed an account:
“The signature of President Hoover Hoover of the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Law in Washington is the final of the tragi-comic to one of the most amazing chapters in the world history of tariffs, and it is the one that would oppose an enthusiast who would have been all over the world.”
“Such is the inevitable result,” we wrote, “he works in the interest of the jacket through political influence.” Meanwhile, King’s efforts to satisfy voters were in Canada. 28. His party was crushed into the Snap elections by the Conservatives who also promised Steem retaliatory tariffs. Other countries have increased retaliatory tariffs against America and the world has divided into competing trading blocks.
As a result, the US economy suffered. Global trade was hammered by depression, causing the value of US imports and exports to decrease by almost 70% between 1929 and 1932. Smoot-hawley contributed to a fair share in the decline. (Although the relatively closed economy of America and goods that are not covered by Smoot-Hawley have reduced the decline in trade contribution to the country’s financial suffering.)
Herbert Hoover’s faith that American voters were moving “further to the policy of isolation” led him to the tariffs
Picture: Bridgeman
The non -dopularity of the tariff increased soon after it went through. At the beginning of the new congress in 1931, the Democrats had control of the house. Although still in the minority in the Senate, they could manage business policy by working with dissatisfied Republicans. Many of Hoover’s parties, however, glued to weapons:
“Regular Republican politicians do not show any indication that their belief in the merit of high protectionism, but from all neighborhoods of the country there is evidence of the ever -increasing disillusionment as a promoter of prosperity.”
In the 1932 presidential elections, Franklin Roosevelt, a democratic candidate, he accused Republicans of using fees to build a “impregnable start of barbed wire” between America and the rest of the world. He proposed to reset and a restaurant store. These newspapers praised these “fine principles”, but believed that they could “emerge without harm from the fractional bargaining and logling”:
“Mr. Roosevelt, it’s true, it continues to tell the existing tariff and advocates negotiations of trade contracts with other transfers. Although he was forced to assure US farmers in the West campaign that would use such protection.
We thought it would be a ban rather than a business policy that WoW decides on the elections. Whatever motivated them, the Americans left the office in November 1932. Smoot and Hawley lost their places that year. The economic effects of depression and tariffs that US business partners raised, said democrats and were skeptical about tariffs. In 1934, Roosevelt ensured the power to deal with other countries on tariff rates and began a slow process of reducing trading barriers.
Economist Hoped that the victory of Franklin Roosevelt “will follow a strenuous decrease in tariff”
Image: Getty Pictures
“Protection”, we wrote at the time of the Smoot-Hawley tariff, “it was supposed to be a good servant, becoming a dominant and expensive master”. Like the trade wars that Hoover’s tariffs stimulated hard, Mr. Trump could be. And it is a consumer who will result in an account. In 1930 we hoped that “if there is any consolation that can be derived from this last chapter in tariff foolishness, it is convinced that American eyes are bored.” For most of the 20th century, this optimism was repaid. We wrote about SMOOT-HAWLEY in 2008 and said that our “Plants reasons think that a terrible lesson of 30 will not have to learn again”. Mr. Trump’s return to proteism shows that America needs a repetition course. ■
Read Our free exchange column On lessons with the 1930s for Mr. Trump
