Document Type
Article
Abstract
One of the most egregious errors committed during the Great Depression was the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930. It was the highest U.S. tariff of the century and sparked massive foreign protest. Immediate retaliation from Spain, Italy, Switzerland and Canada destabilized the Western market. It nearly collapsed when Great Britain, France and Germany reacted to the crisis. Smoot-Hawley did not cause the Great Depression, but it certainly worsened it by initiating a wave of trade barriers that severely reduced world trade. It should be a caveat for all international trade issues and persuasively shows why protectionism is a dubious policy.
Publication Date
Spring 1999
Journal Title
Major Themes in Economics
Volume
1
Issue
1
First Page
3
Last Page
26
Copyright
©1999 by Major Themes in Economics
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Milder, Mark
(1999)
"Parade of Protection: A Survey of the European Reaction to the Passage of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930,"
Major Themes in Economics, 1, 3-26.
Available at:
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/mtie/vol1/iss1/3