[central_va]

Trade as a percent of GDP was < 5% in the early 1930’s. Now it is $3.5 Trillion out of $17 Trillion = 21%. Big difference.

[AntiScumbag]

Trade as a percent of GDP was < 5% in the early 1930’s

Wrong, as usual. Trade was NOT less than 5% of GDP in 1929. GDP was then 104.6 billion. Exports were 5.9 billion. Imports were 5.6 billion.

http://www.bea.gov/iTable/iTableHTML.cfm?reqID=9

"Trade" was about 11.5 billion. That's about 11%, not "less than 5%."

In 4 years trade fell to 2 billion of exports and 1.9 billion of imports. 3.9 billion total. Down almost 70%.

As I pointed out to you here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3406938/posts

I guess you can't be bothered with any numbers which make you look like a fool.

Thanks, Smoot-Hawley for dragging the economy down much further than it would have otherwise have fallen! Good job, tariffs! Take a bow, protectionists!

Now it is $3.5 Trillion out of $17 Trillion = 21%.

Wrong again, trade is not now 3.5 trillion, that's the 70% damage that could be done to trade by your protectionist nonsense.

Trade now totals a little over 5 trillion and GDP is about 18 trillion, not 17 trillion. How do you manage to get every single number wrong? It's amazing.

What's funny is that you are now using my 3.5 trillion damage number that could be done by tariffs. Apparently you are confused. I'm not surprised.

And 5 trillion in total trade (exports plus imports) is 28% of GDP, not 21%.

So, yeah, it's a big difference. It's a much bigger and more important difference than you think. Thanks for making my point. Again.

[nathanbedford]

Big difference.

Actually not such a big difference:

The Smoot-Hawley Tariff was more a consequence of the onset of the Great Depression than an initial cause. But while the tariff might not have caused the Depression, it certainly did not make it any better. It provoked a storm of foreign retaliatory measures and came to stand as a symbol of the "beggar-thy-neighbor" policies (policies designed to improve one's own lot at the expense of that of others) of the 1930s. Such policies contributed to a drastic decline in international trade. For example, U.S. imports from Europe declined from a 1929 high of $1,334 million to just $390 million in 1932, while U.S. exports to Europe fell from $2,341 million in 1929 to $784 million in 1932. Overall, world trade declined by some 66% between 1929 and 1934. More generally, Smoot-Hawley did nothing to foster trust and cooperation among nations in either the political or economic realm during a perilous era in international relations.

http://future.state.gov/when/timeline/1921_timeline/smoot_tariff.html But let's accept your assertion which absolutely ignores all the knock on effects of such a tariff policy, that is, the knock on damage to every other sector as country after country lines up to retaliate and the businesses which support the protected sector fail in sequence.

The increased percentage of trade carrying the United States economy today is all the more reason to keep an economic ignoramus. Off our free enterprise system. The problem is not the stupidity of our negotiators but the ego of Donald Trump.

Donald Trump's approach is egocentric and unavoidably uneven. On this thread I have pointed out that it is our regulatory scheme which causes as much damage as our trade posture. If one thinks the man who declined to call for the end of biogas subsidies in Iowa, (he rather called for their increase!) will not pander to special-interest groups, one simply cannot read headlines.

If one places faith in such a man to courageously restructure the trade system on a fair basis one is valuing hope well above experience. If one expects the likes of Donald Trump to negotiate our way through the minefields of international trade one is simply deluded.