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Friday, March 29, 2024

Depressing 1930s chart shows what happened the last time we had Trump-like trade policy

 

Depressing 1930s chart shows what happened the last time we had Trump-like trade policy

By Sam Ro, Yahoo Finance

In his efforts to capitalize on voter discontent, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has cranked up his anti-trade rhetoric to appeal to workers who have seen their jobs move overseas.

Among other things, Trump has proposed imposing a steep tariff on products made in China and Mexico.

Unfortunately, there are many more things wrong with tariffs than there are right. To begin with it isn't exactly obvious if imposing tariffs on China and Mexico would bring jobs to the US. Rather, companies seeking these manufacturing cost advantages are like to just move production to one of the many other low-cost countries in the developing world.

Whatever the case, such a protectionist trade policy would cause the cost of production to go up, which means the prices for finished goods would most likely go up for consumers. In other words, no one really wins with tariffs.

"The last American president who was a trade protectionist was Republican Herbert Hoover," wrote Stephen Moore and Larry Kudlow. "Does Trump aspire to be a 21st century Hoover with a moderized plaform of the 1930 Smoot-Hawley tariff that helped send the US and world economy into a decade-long depression and a collapse of the banking system?"

More here >

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