This is stupid and ahistorical. Smoot raised tariffs from very high to slightly higher. Eichengreen and others have shown it had no real economic effect. Volumes of trade fell because of Depression, not Smoot 1/2https://nyti.ms/2G9Tam4
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And FDR did not repeal Smoot in 34. He didn't touch a single tariff til '36, at which point he started signing minor reciprocal agreements. The basic Smoot approach was in play until after WW2. Read
@B_Eichengreen here http://www.nber.org/papers/w20011 reply 0 retweets 0 likesShow this thread -
And things changed after WW2 because America's position in the world had changed, and more importantly its understanding of its position in the world had changed.
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Replying to @KenWhyte3
I take the point that Smoot's effects overstated. But during WWII FDR & Hull were clearly trying to set up institutions to make USA cornerstone of international trading system (IMF, World Bank, Bretton Woods, planning for GATT).
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Replying to @HeerJeet
yes, when they started thinking about the post-war world. FDR was elected in 32. He went a full term without lifting a finger on tariffs, and a decade without making any serious moves on tariffs.
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Replying to @KenWhyte3
I think it would've been very hard to have any substantial free trade in 1930s give autarkic governments in Europe & Asia. Free trade regime only possible after war
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Replying to @HeerJeet @KenWhyte3
The western states didn't need free trade back then because they had their empires. Free trade only became widespread after the end of the European empires in the Post WWII era
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Sure, but ending those empires was also pushed by American policy (precisely to avoid return to interwar autarky)
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