During the presidential campaign of 2024, Donald Trump declared that instituting tariffs on a variety of nations would reinvigorate the U.S. economy and make America great again. Consequently, after his January 20, 2025 inauguration, President Trump announced tariffs of 25% against Canada and Mexico and 10% against China. He also declared that tariffs against other nations would be forthcoming.
Nearly one hundred years earlier, President Herbert Hoover, despite receiving a
petition from over 1,000 economists urging him to veto this legislation, signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act into law on June 17, 1930. This legislation
increased already high U.S. tariff rates. Ironically, rather than easing the economic pain associated with the growing Great Depression, Smoot-Hawley made matters worse. Especially, when other nations retaliated with their own tariffs against American produced goods.
History reveals that the best way to resolve international trade disputes is through calm, rational, negotiations. For example, in 1934, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act which helped reduce world tariff levels and promoted cooperation among nations. Unfortunately, Donald Trump’s current strategy of relying on “tough talk” plays well to his political base, but, ultimately, hurts America’s economic stature.
