[Bob]

There are a lot of opinions about what caused the Great Depression. Smoot-Hawley may have been unfairly blamed.

I agree that it's arguable whether or not Smoot-Hawley worsened or lengthened the Great Depression. Any blame may certainly be unfair.

Smoot-Hawley, though, clearly didn't help to alleviate the Great Depression. After its passage in 1930, the depression continued unabated through the rest of the decade.

[DannyTN]

In 1929, imports were 4% of GNP and exports were 5%.

This article makes the case that the impact on Imports/Exports was simply too small for Smoot-Hawley to be a causative factor.

According to this Imports are now 16% of our GNP.

To be sure there will be retaliatory tariffs, and exports will be similarly affected. We need to select very carefully the industries we want returned to the U.S. and tariff those. That would include all military components and most high tech stuff that's not highly toxic.

We really ought to tie our tariffs to unemployment levels, so that they can automatically drop as unemployment goes down and automatically raise as unemployment goes up.

[DannyTN]

That 16% is understated. Chinese don’t even make minimum wage. That 16% may well be a 25-30% increase in the economy in the U.S. Some things would cost consumers more, but government entitlements would drop as employment rose. Government revenues would go up both due to the tariff and due to the greater employment.