By the mid-1890s, in the midst of a devastating depression, tariff reform leapt to the front of electoral politics.
Are you for high tariffs or low tariffs?
Some observers have argued that by deepening the Great Depression the tariff may have contributed to the rise of political extremism, enabling leaders such as Adolf Hitler to improve their political strength and gain power.
During the Great Depression, a tariff war led to a suppression of demand, a contraction of world trade and prolonged and deepened global economic agony.
At the dawn of the Great Depression, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act raised U.S. tariffs on more than 20,000 imported goods, which accelerated our decline instead of correcting it.
Surely, the heavens will tremble; trade wars impend; the apocalypse of Depression era Smoot Hawley tariffs are about to descend upon us.
These steps failed to ease the depression, however, while the tariff helped to export it.
World trade did indeed decline, but this was due to the Depression itself, not higher American tariffs.
This was also the fear in 1930, when the U.S. hiked tariffs, aggravating the world Depression.
