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BumRushDaShow

(157,285 posts)
Thu Jun 26, 2025, 07:32 AM Jun 26

Pro-Trump think tank defends tariffs by dusting off 1930 law blasted by Reagan for worsening Great Depression

Source: Law & Crime

Jun 25th, 2025, 8:36 pm


On the same day that the Trump administration urged an appellate court to confirm that President Donald Trump was acting well within his authority to impose tariffs on national security and economic grounds, a constitutional law professor representing a pro-Trump think tank separately cited another authority: the Tariff Act of 1930, otherwise known as the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act.

The America First Policy Institute on Tuesday filed court documents as amicus curiae, or friend of the court, joining a chorus of Trump-supporting organizations asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to reverse a late-May ruling by the U.S. Court of International Trade that said Trump's tariffs, including those imposed on Mexico, Canada and China, were not authorized under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).

That ruling is administratively stayed at present pending the outcome of the appeal at the Federal Circuit, and in the meantime, briefs have started to hit the appellate docket.

While the Trump administration's opening brief expressed full-throated support for Trump's tariff powers under the IEEPA and in the face of "grave threats" to national security, the America First Policy Institute, through Yale Law School constitutional law professor Jed Rubenfeld, focused instead on the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act as "the single most relevant federal statute" that hasn't been considered, largely echoing an article Rubenfeld recently published in the Free Press.

Read more: https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/pro-trump-think-tank-defends-tariffs-by-dusting-off-1930-law-blasted-by-reagan-for-worsening-great-depression/



Link to BRIEF (PDF) - https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cafc.23105/gov.uscourts.cafc.23105.61.0.pdf


White-washing history.
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Pro-Trump think tank defends tariffs by dusting off 1930 law blasted by Reagan for worsening Great Depression (Original Post) BumRushDaShow Jun 26 OP
Pro-Trump think-tank... Hugin Jun 26 #1
Anyone seen the Smoot-Hawley tariff lesson in film "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"? Anyone? Anyone? Timeflyer Jun 26 #2
Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act United States [1930]. From Britannica LiberalArkie Jun 26 #3
The last paragraph is significant and not being discussed with the current okaawhatever Jun 26 #4

LiberalArkie

(18,650 posts)
3. Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act United States [1930]. From Britannica
Thu Jun 26, 2025, 09:20 AM
Jun 26

Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, U.S. legislation (June 17, 1930) that raised import duties to protect American businesses and farmers, adding considerable strain to the international economic climate of the Great Depression. The act takes its name from its chief sponsors, Senator Reed Smoot of Utah, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and Representative Willis Hawley of Oregon, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. It was the last legislation under which the U.S. Congress set actual tariff rates.

The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act raised the United States’s already high tariff rates. In 1922 Congress had enacted the Fordney-McCumber Act, which was among the most punitive protectionist tariffs passed in the country’s history, raising the average import tax to some 40 percent. The Fordney-McCumber tariff prompted retaliation from European governments but did little to dampen U.S. prosperity. Throughout the 1920s, however, as European farmers recovered from World War I and their American counterparts faced intense competition and declining prices because of overproduction, U.S. agricultural interests lobbied the federal government for protection against agricultural imports. In his 1928 campaign for the presidency, Republican candidate Herbert Hoover promised to increase tariffs on agricultural goods, but after he took office lobbyists from other economic sectors encouraged him to support a broader increase. Although an increase in tariffs was supported by most Republicans, an effort to raise import duties failed in 1929, largely because of opposition from centrist Republicans in the U.S. Senate. In response to the stock market crash of 1929, however, protectionism gained strength, and, though the tariff legislation subsequently passed only by a narrow margin (44–42) in the Senate, it passed easily in the House of Representatives. Despite a petition from more than 1,000 economists urging him to veto the legislation, Hoover signed the bill into law on June 17, 1930.

Smoot-Hawley contributed to the early loss of confidence on Wall Street and signaled U.S. isolationism. By raising the average tariff by some 20 percent, it also prompted retaliation from foreign governments, and many overseas banks began to fail. (Because the legislation set both specific and ad valorem tariff rates [i.e., rates based on the value of the product], determining the precise percentage increase in tariff levels is difficult and a subject of debate among economists.) Within two years some two dozen countries adopted similar “beggar-thy-neighbour” duties, making worse an already beleaguered world economy and reducing global trade. U.S. imports from and exports to Europe fell by some two-thirds between 1929 and 1932, while overall global trade declined by similar levels in the four years that the legislation was in effect.

In 1934 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act, reducing tariff levels and promoting trade liberalization and cooperation with foreign governments. Some observers have argued that the tariff, by deepening the Great Depression, may have contributed to the rise of political extremism, enabling leaders such as Adolf Hitler to increase their political strength and gain power.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Smoot-Hawley-Tariff-Act

okaawhatever

(9,563 posts)
4. The last paragraph is significant and not being discussed with the current
Thu Jun 26, 2025, 11:46 PM
Jun 26

tariffs. “Rise in political extremism” “enabling leaders like Hitler to increase political strength and gain power”.

The media isn’t discussing the non-economic fallout from tariffs. Economic woes in tariffed countries will create anti-American sentiment.

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