Trump steel tariffs: Trade wars are good, says Trump

Trump steel tariffs: Trade wars are good, says Trump

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43257712

It was the Smoot-Hawley tariff act that loced inb the great depression by starting a trade war, appalling economic ignorance. ~Bob

Tariff disaster offers a lesson on the folly of protectionism. By Thomas Sowell

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2005-06-16/news/0506160077_1_tariffs-smoot-hawley

Excerpt: The Hawley-Smoot bill raised U.S. tariffs to record-high levels in an attempt to protect existing jobs and in hopes of helping the unemployed find work producing things that the United States had previously been importing from other countries. Many businesses were in favor of the new tariffs, hoping to retain or expand their markets, and farmers were especially big supporters of Hawley-Smoot. Most of the leading economists in the country were opposed. A front-page headline in The New York Times of May 5, 1930, read: "1,028 Economists Ask Hoover to Veto Pending Tariff Bill." Those signing this public appeal against the new tariffs included many of the top economists of the day - 25 professors of economics at Harvard, 26 at the University of Chicago and 28 at Columbia.