Trump says Great Depression would never have started if tariffs continued

President Trump on Wednesday said that the 1930s Great Depression wouldn’t have happened if tariffs had continued, while announcing his massive tariff plan to hit trading partners.

The president argued that before the income tax on U.S. citizens was established in 1913, the U.S. leaned into tariffs and was collecting money from other countries. Then he argued that the U.S. ended tariffs, despite a tariff act from President Herbert Hoover at the time.

“In 1929, it all came to a very abrupt end with the Great Depression, and it would have never happened if they had stayed with the tariff policy, would have been a much different story,” Trump said.

He added, “They tried to bring back tariffs to save our country, but it was gone, it was gone, it was too late. Nothing could have been done, took years and years to get out of that depression.”

The Tariff Act of 1930, also known as the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, raised tariffs on tens of thousands of goods into the U.S. and was known as a protectionist policy.

Economists think the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act actually “provoked a wave of foreign retaliation that plunged the world deeper into the Great Depression,” according to the Office of the Historian within the State Department. The department outlined that after Hoover’s law, imports from Europe fell from $1.3 billion to just $390 million by 1932 and exports to Europe fell from $2.3 billion to $784 million by 1932.

Trump’s comments on Wednesday came as he announced a 10 percent tariff that will go into effect on Friday on all countries and announced that about 60 countries will face a higher reciprocal tariff, which will go into effect on April 9 at 12:01 a.m.

The president also announced a 25 percent tariff on all foreign-made automobiles that will take effect at 12:01 a.m. April 3.