Big difference. Actually not such a big difference:
The Smoot-Hawley Tariff was more a consequence of the onset of the Great Depression than an initial cause. But while the tariff might not have caused the Depression, it certainly did not make it any better. It provoked a storm of foreign retaliatory measures and came to stand as a symbol of the "beggar-thy-neighbor" policies (policies designed to improve one's own lot at the expense of that of others) of the 1930s. Such policies contributed to a drastic decline in international trade. For example, U.S. imports from Europe declined from a 1929 high of $1,334 million to just $390 million in 1932, while U.S. exports to Europe fell from $2,341 million in 1929 to $784 million in 1932. Overall, world trade declined by some 66% between 1929 and 1934. More generally, Smoot-Hawley did nothing to foster trust and cooperation among nations in either the political or economic realm during a perilous era in international relations.
http://future.state.gov/when/timeline/1921_timeline/smoot_tariff.html But let's accept your assertion which absolutely ignores all the knock on effects of such a tariff policy, that is, the knock on damage to every other sector as country after country lines up to retaliate and the businesses which support the protected sector fail in sequence.
The increased percentage of trade carrying the United States economy today is all the more reason to keep an economic ignoramus. Off our free enterprise system. The problem is not the stupidity of our negotiators but the ego of Donald Trump.
Donald Trump's approach is egocentric and unavoidably uneven. On this thread I have pointed out that it is our regulatory scheme which causes as much damage as our trade posture. If one thinks the man who declined to call for the end of biogas subsidies in Iowa, (he rather called for their increase!) will not pander to special-interest groups, one simply cannot read headlines.
If one places faith in such a man to courageously restructure the trade system on a fair basis one is valuing hope well above experience. If one expects the likes of Donald Trump to negotiate our way through the minefields of international trade one is simply deluded.
Donald Trump needs to do one thing, and one thing only: get elected.
That single watershed event will send the entire DC Establishment howling and screaming "bloody murder" into the night.
President Trump and his advisors will be able to handle US trade policy without embracing abominations such as the TPP, and without TPA hopefully as well.
Nothing could be more important than shaking the DC status quo to its core. Nothing.
And all of your sugar-coated protestations can't change the fact that the Establishment clearly sees no bigger threat to their existence than the election of Donald Trump.
Maybe the Left/Mass Media/GOPe will focus their attention on Ted Cruz if they succeed in blunting Trump's candidacy.
Ted Cruz had already played the race card (!), and then, last Friday night, he gave nothing but a lip-service rebuke to organized Left wing thugs who criminally infringed on the Peoples' Right to Peaceably Assemble, simply because it wasn't his rally that got canceled.
Instead of showing statesmanship, leadership, and the proper emphasis, Ted Cruz criticized the thugs in passing, and then went on to spend twice as much energy trying to blame Trump.
What he should have done is forcefully and fiercely repudiated the lawlessness fomented by the organized totalitarian Left.
Ted Cruz has exposed himself as a naked political opportunist who is perfectly willing to carry the Establishment's water, inasmuch as he has mimicked their unprincipled tactics in an all-out effort at character assassination against Donald Trump. That is shameful.
You yourself, with all of your eloquence and erudition, have been engaging it the same thing: relentless, hysterical, all-out character assassination against Donald Trump.
Donald Trump is surely a flawed candidate, but he categorically is not the evil, slavering demon which you and your ilk so vehemently portray him as.
Quite frankly, Trump supporters have had quite enough of the caricatures and the relentless hatred and distortions.
Ted Cruz will not be the Republican nominee for President of the United States, and, quite frankly, that's his own fault.
Donald Trump brought many important issues to the fore, and he endured vicious attacks as a result.
Ted Cruz did not lead on these issues; so Trump seized the initiative, and he has not relinquished it. Nor will he as long as he is standing.
I'm going to vote for Donald Trump, warts and all, I'll do it with a clear conscience, and I'll sleep easily at night, secure in the knowledge that I remain a conservative, despite you and your ilk who insist otherwise.
If, somehow, Ted Cruz wrests the attention of the electorate away from Donald Trump, then I will support him as the nominee.
Ted Cruz has faltered. He has been acting more and more like a typical politician, using typical tactics, and acting in predictable ways. I thought he was better than tat. I was wrong.
Go, Trump, go!