The Lesson of Smoot-Hawley

 A version of this episode was first released on Aug 3.

If U.S. President Donald Trump doesn’t know about the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, then this episode is for him. The legislation, enacted in 1930, introduced tariffs on 900 products and launched the United States headlong into a trade war with Canada, the United Kingdom, and other countries. Already in the throes of the Great Depression, the retaliation made it worse. It took the United States more than a decade to recover.

Douglas Irwin, an economist who has written a book about Smoot-Hawley, joins us on the podcast this week to talk about tariffs, trade wars, and that iconic scene in the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Anyone? Anyone?