What to know about the Smoot-Hawley tariffs and what their legacy means for Donald Trump

President Donald Trump announced extensive tariffs during a Rose Garden ceremony on Wednesday, fulfilling his promise from the campaign path and his first few months of service.

Republican support, promising unsurpassed rates as a means of protecting American businesses and global knee competitors, is not new.

While the description now creates Trump, it is also applied to Herbert Hoover, who led the country nearly a century ago during the beginning of the Great Depression.

Within months of the catastrophe on the Hoover Stock Exchange, the Hoover Law has signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariffs Act, a measure of 1930, which increases the tariffs for a wide flow of imported goods. In response, several countries imposed retaliatory rates and trading fell. Many economists view the measure as a factor that exacerbates the economic decline of the nation.

“A whole generation of Republicans and Democrats after World War II was very conditioned by the tariff campaigns because of the experience of the 1930s. Now we have a new generation of leaders who are much more likely to pull the trigger of higher tariffs,” Douglas Irvin, Professor of Economics at the Dartmut College and Author ” Depression, “said Ajase to Smoot-Hawley and Big Depression, Douglas Irwin, Professor of College in Dartmouth and Author of” Brokering and Great Depression, “told Douglas Irrin, and the great depression,” Adhaism told.

Here is what you know about the Smoot-Hawley Tariffs Act, its economic impact and what its heritage for the tariffs announced by Trump, according to experts, means.

What is Smoot-Hawley’s Tariff Act?

The Smoot-Hawley Smoot-Hawley Tariffs Act arrived at a time of economic crisis.

As the stock exchange was shaking and the financial panic is mastered, Congress contracts a set of rates increased, which initially aims to protect US farmers from foreign competition, but ultimately expanded to a wide range of goods produced.

The measure was named after its key supporters in the congress: Republican senator Reed Smout of Utah and Republican Representative Willis Holes of Oregon. He accepted the Senate with a narrow margin from 44 to 42 and sailed through the House of Representatives with a vote from 264 to 147. Hoover signed Smot-Hauli in the law in June 1930.

For products already facing tariffs, the law average increased import tax from 40% to nearly 60%, which has led to an increase in approximately 20 percentage points, Chris Mitchner, Professor of Economics at Santa Clara University, who is studying Smoot-Hawley, told ABC News. It also greatly expanded the number of goods to be tariffs, he added.

“It ended with more or less complete rewriting of the tariff schedule,” Mitchner said, citing the Nation’s Tariff Code.

What happened after Smot-Houlley came into force and did that cause the big depression?

The Smoot-Hawley rates have created an almost immediate trade war, in which several foreign countries responded to tariffs by throwing the US imports with their own taxes.

For example, Canada has set tariffs for 16 products, which represent approximately one -third of the US exports, according to a working document, co -author of Mitchner in 2021. France, and Spain have slaughtered taxes on imported American cars, the main US industry.

“Trade partners in America have responded by targeting US exports,” Mitchner said. “The most important downturns were in target products.”

As a result, trading partners have suffered reduced production, but so did the United States, Michener said.

Trade slowdown weakened the economy and sharpened the economic decline of the nation, experts said. However, the big depression had been conquered before the effects of Smot-Houly, excluding it as a cause of the crisis, they added.

“Smot-Hoouls influenced the US economy at a vulnerable moment,” Irwin said.

What can mean the Smoot-Hawley’s legacy for the announcement of Trump’s tariffs?

Smoot-Hawley has been shadowing over the tariff policy for decades, Irwin said. “It gave a bad name to the tariffs,” he added.

For decades, prominent members of the two major parties have focused on the risks caused by tariffs, citing Smout-Hauli from time to time, Irwin said.

“The Smoot-Hawley Tariff lit an international trade war and helped to sink our country into the big depression,” said then President Ronald Reagan then during a 1986 radio address.

The measure also played a key role in transferring tariff authorities from the Congress to the Executive Branch, as legislators sought a quick way to return the tariffs, experts said.

In 1934, the Reciprocal Tariffs Act gave the President the power to increase or decrease rates by up to 50%. A series of subsequent laws have helped to transfer the additional tariff authorities to the president.

“Congress now has much to do with tariff determining,” Irvin said.

On the trail of the campaign, Trump said he could apply tariffs without congress support. It is largely accurate in its description of the wide width that the president enjoys in determining and applying some tariffs, experts told ABC News earlier.

“Trump uses the delegated powers to transmit tariffs,” Irwin said. “This ends the circle of Smot-Hauli in some sense.”