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Policy Memo
Topline
Trump Tariffs Would Lead To Another Economic Disaster In 1929, as the United States was headed into an economic downturn, a progressive president poured gasoline on the fire by raising the tariff rate on imports by nearly 50 percent. Today, economist
Trump Tariffs Would Lead To Another Economic Disaster
In 1929, as the United States was headed into an economic downturn, a progressive president poured gasoline on the fire by raising the tariff rate on imports by nearly 50 percent. Today, economists and historians hold President Herbert Hoover and the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act he signed into law responsible for deepening the decade of misery that we now call the Great Depression. Tariffs are taxes; they hurt Americans and often lead to escalating rounds of international retaliation that can cripple economies, much like Smoot-Hawley did in the 1930s. But unfortunately, those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it. Recently, former President Donald Trump proposed a 10 percent tariff on all imports, which would turbo-charge the tariff rate by more than 200 percent, setting a 78-year high for the taxes that Americans pay on imported goods. By jumping to a new baseline of 10 percent tariffs across the board, Trump’s tariffs would even eclipse the infamous Smoot-Hawley tariff hike. According to the Tax Foundation, the Trump tariff plan would cost American consumers more than $300 billion a year, shrink the economy, and axe 505,000 full-time jobs that are helping households make ends meet. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. If other countries respond in kind, the damage would be all the more devastating. You can’t grow the economy by hiking taxes. Democrats have long forgotten that. Now, it looks like some Republicans are forgetting it too. We already have one party that would love nothing more than to raise taxes on Americans. The last thing we need is another.
1925 1935 1945 1955 1965 1975 1985 1995 2005 2015 2025
Average Tariff Rate (Total Imports)
Make Depressions Great Again? Trump Tariffs Would Mark 78-Year Extreme
Smoot-Hawley Trump Tariff
Trump Tariff Increases Larger Than Smoot-Hawley
Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act raised the average tariff rate on all imports
by 6.3% (from 13.5% to 19.8%).
Trump Tariffs would raise the average rate by at
Smoot-Hawley Trump Tariff
Trump Tariffs Exponentially
Raise The Baseline Rate