That’s really bright. The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act is credited as being the single most important cause of the Great Depression. Tariffs benefit only the rich and powerful while hurting the punishing the working class. If you want to eliminate poverty and get rid of the national debt, abolish tariffs and reduce federal spending by 50%.
Smoot-Hawley tariff rates were 60%, not 20%. China has 100% tariffs on some American imports. We currently have a 266% tariff on Chinese steel. Do you think these are responsible for the current Recession ?
There are also many economists that do not consider Smoot-Hawley to blame for the Depression.
[Alfred E. Eckes argues that Smoot-Hawley had little effect on the severity of the Great Depression,[6] as does Douglas A. Irwin in The Review of Economics and Statistics, “Smoot-Hawley ... probably did not contribute significantly to the economic downturn.”.[7]] — Wikipedia entry on Smoot-Hawley
This has just become a scape-goat pushed forward by misguided free-traders like you. So-called “free trade”, where we remove tariffs and duties while our trading partners slap our goods with high duties and VATs has resulted in entire industries being lost.
We have been in a trade cold war for 40+ years and our policy of unilateral disarmament has been a dismal failure. We buy cheaply made imported junk using borrowed money handed out as welfare to jobless Americans that used to be the most productive manufacturing workforce in the world.
If it were me, I’d put whatever tariff it took on imported TVs until America had a TV industry again. Same with steel and aluminum. Same with electronics components. Same with textiles. Same with computer chips. I consider all of these to be issues of national security and products we CANNOT be dependent on outside producers for.
It failed because it was another tax, that had no compensatory relief elsewhere, i.e. an overall higher tax burden. Not because there is something inherently evil about a tariff per se. Right now we don’t tax what comes in from China except when sold, and then the same as merchandise that was made in the USA under its own regulatory and income tax burdens.
For Donald to be able to use this as a stick for the carrot of free trade, makes eminent sense.