It didn’t cause it but it didn’t help.
That said, those that scream Smoot Hawley at the first mention of any import tariff aren’t being honest. After all, Ronald Reagan imposed import tariffs on a number of products and it didn’t cause the economy to collapse.
Imposing import tariffs on all products would be disasterous under any administration.
Pretty much the points I was trying to make
There is just too much extremism from the “Free Trade is good” crowd” when we have trillions of dollars in trade deficits in this decade alone....I should post those numbers.
I was listening to a usually reasonable conservative last night...and just absolutely got the whole Smoot thing wrong. That motivated me to make the post...I knew the GDP of the US still grew in most years of the Depression...hardly “continuing” it. The GDP is the key figure in recording economic growth
I am not against trade, just some of the stupidity on both ends of the issue. We need to get back to trade based on true free market...if there is demand for that product, let people buy it
There was no demand for Communist Chinese products 30 years ago....no one was going around “oohh...I got to have that Chinese dog food”
“Imposing import tariffs on all products would be disasterous under any administration.”
How about we match tariffs?