gosh-dern foreigners!
After we raised tariffs on them with Smoot-Hawley, they went reciprocal and raised tariffs on us. We were only trying to protect manufacturing from imports, and the foreigners - by going reciprocal - caused a reduction of our exports (mostly agricultural goods) and thereby caused a dust bowl. Turned what might have been a recession into a depression. Nothing like it ever before or ever since.
Oh BS. Smoot Hawley was an insignificant act that only effected 1.5% of GDP. As such, it was impossible for it to have the massive effect you Free Traitors™ claim it had. Smoot Hawley is there nothing we can’t blame on it?
by Bob Powell, 2/15/09
Smoot-Hawley tariff "protectionism" is continually being blamed for the Great Depression: "OMG, that would start a trade war and hurt our exports. After all, doncha know that caused the Great Depression?!!!" Trouble is, our enormous trade deficit shows we've been in, and lost, that war. Creating balanced trade and Buy American are perfectly consistent with fundamental economic development principles and are not simply "protectionism." "Free trade" proponents commit economic treason by perpetrating pro-"free trade" propaganda. Not to put too fine a point on it, they're lying. Here's why it's obvious. And it wasn't FDR's New Deal that prolonged it either.
1. Total Trade was minuscule relative to GDP. A "Total Trade" was about 1/100th of GDP and therefore a "Total Trade" downturn is about as likely to have tripped up the U.S. economy and caused a Great Depression as a human being would be likely to be tripped by an ant.
“and thereby caused a dust bowl.”
The dust bowl was a physical phenomenon, not a financial one. Topsoil dried up and blew away. Actual physical dirt, not some financial fiction. This happened because some genius came up with a way of preparing the soil for winter, which was supposed to hold the moisture from winter precipitation.
Instead, together with reduced precipitation, it prepared the soil to blow away with any slight wind.
But maybe you didn’t mean to say that tariffs caused dust storms.