Funny, foreign trade was about 7 percent of the economy back then. Smoot cut it in half. So the unemployment spike, etc,,was all because of the three percent of the economy affected by smoot?
The Smoot mythology is part of the Roosevelt “campaign to get elected” propaganda, and not much more. Sorry. The new dealers had an OBVIOUS reason to blame the depression on Smoot.
As I see it, if you want to compare our economy with what ours was like during the Depression, you really should first compare our position in the world's economy. Back then, the US was a major exporter, like today's China. Back then, the world's major importer was the UK. It was the UK's rise in tariffs that triggered the Depression. It was devastating to our economy while theirs didn't deteriorate that badly. Smoot, which was a reaction to the UK policy, was really not a major factor back then but a bill like it could be this time.