Donald Trump- A 21st Century Protectionist Herbert Hoover

Newsmax ^ | Friday, 28 Aug 2015 07:28 PM | Lawrence Kudlow

[GeronL]

Here's a historical fact that Donald Trump, and many voters attracted to him, may not know: The last American president who was a trade protectionist was Republican Herbert Hoover.

Obviously that economic strategy didn't turn out so well — either for the nation or the GOP.

Does Trump aspire to be a 21st century Hoover with a modernized platform of the 1930 Smoot-Hawley tariff that helped send the U.S. and world economy into a decade-long depression and a collapse of the banking system?

We can't help wondering whether the panic in world financial markets is in part a result of the Trump assault on free trade.

Trump is also now running full throttle on an anti-immigration platform that could hurt growth as well and alienate Republicans from ethnic voters that the GOP needs if it is going to win in 2016.

We call this the Trump Fortress America platform. He clearly sees international trade and immigration as a negative sum game for American workers.

He recently announced that as president he would prohibit American companies like Ford from building plants in Mexico. He moans pessimistically that "China is eating our lunch" and is "sucking the blood out of the U.S.?"

But strategic tax cuts and regulatory relief after the anti-business rule-making assault by Obama, not trade and immigration barriers, are the solution to America's competitiveness deficit.

A draft of Trump's 14-point economic manifesto promises that, as president, he would "modify or cancel any business, or trade agreement that hinders American business development, or is shown to create an unfair trading relationship with a foreign entity."

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[C. Edmund Wright]

I disagree with you on trade and Smoot Hawley - and your “scripture among free traders” includes 100% of the all time great conservative economists.

But other than that, I agree with everything else you said. Doesn’t change one fact...your last two responses have been totally different from your first two.

[montag813]

But other than that, I agree with everything else you said. Doesn’t change one fact...your last two responses have been totally different from your first two.

Emotion has its place too. Anger is a great motivator, as Trump is exploiting, and as McCain and Romney rejected, to their detriment.

[C. Edmund Wright]

I agree with that too....Newt had that anger for a while last go round, and when he did, he was way ahead.....

[Impy]

The large majority of libs are protectionists and large majority of conservatives support free trade (aka oppose higher TAXES on imports).

Most businessman and people who understand the economy support free trade, unless it’s in their own personal financial interest not to. I suppose Trump must be one of the those.

I know he funded an indie candidate for NY Governor to try and help the dems defeat Pataki because Pataki supported expanding gaming in NY which would have hurt Trump’s NJ casinos.

I don’t trust him at all on economics. He sounds like Perot.

[servantboy777]

>>The rich take their money and shelter it and the corporations take their dollars overseas.<<

Yep..leaving the middle class to pick up the slack.