“Smoot-Hawley might not have CAUSED the great depression, but it did a lot of damage to the economy.”
Smoot-Hawley wasn’t much different than the Fordney-McCumber Tariff of 1922. Which was followed by the Roaring Twenties.
The collapse of the American banking system from 1930-33 was the cause of the Great Depression. Smoot-Hawley didn’t help but it wasn’t the cause.
Smoot-Hawley only effected trade which was a fringe part of the economy in the 1930’s.