Excellent article in The Economist last week revisiting the circumstances that led to the famously controversial, Tariff Act of 1930 (aka the Smoot Hawley Act) that increased protectionist tariffs in over 900 items just as the world was collapsing into a global depression. The political "groundswell" for the tariffs began - poignantly - during the 1928 election campaign, only to be introduced in the House in March 1929. The battle in the Senate was - apparently - plagued by rampant pork barreling from both parties. Neither had yet developed the strong ideological positions on international trade which they now hold. But by the time the Senate approved the legislation in March 1930, the flush of the boom came to roost as the bust really took hold. (image courtesy The Economist: Willis C. Hawley, a Republican Congressman from Oregon, and Reed Smoot, another Republican Senator from Utah)
[Editor: I found it quite comforting that much of the commentary on how the legislation developed and unfolded was recounted from Canadian academic research1 published in the "no nonsense" (as some surely are) Journal of Economic History - Dec 1997.]
Footnotes:
1) “Trade Wars: Canada’s Reaction to the Smoot-Hawley Tariff” by Judith McDonald, Anthony Patrick O’Brien and Colleen Callahan. Journal of Economic History, December 1997.
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