Trump revives a 1930s mistake that hurt more than it helped

When Donald Trump was inaugurated, by most measures, the United States was the strongest major economy in the world. Growth was robust, unemployment was just above a historic low, inflation had fallen to a manageable level, and productivity — the elixir of economics — had picked up. Trump took this booming economy and upended it with massive tariff hikes. Has anything like this ever been done before? Well, nothing quite as self-defeating, but the Smoot-Hawley tariffs were also imposed after a decade of heady growth. That story is worth recalling because there are startling parallels to today’s situation.

But there was another story about that decade — about the hollowing out of a core American industry, of jobs being shipped abroad and of the loss of the soul of the country. Agriculture had been at the heart of the American economy, accounting for most of the workforce until the late 19th century. Even by 1900, 40 percent of the American workforce labored in the agricultural sector. The country was defined by its yeoman farmers. Every one of the first American presidents — Washington, Adams, Jefferson — had owned and run farms. But the rise of manufacturing had resulted in the erosion of that landscape. By 1920, more than half of the country had moved into cities, and only 26 percent of Americans worked in agriculture. The American way of life was in peril.

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