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Economists are warning Donald Trump about tariffs with a letter from the 1930s
One unintended consequence of Donald Trump’s protectionist impulses is that the dry details of trade policy history are now trendy. So much so that the once obscure Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 has suddenly become a headline-grabbing topic in publications ranging from NPR toBreitbart.
The bill—named after the two Republicans in Congress who pushed it—is an echo of the kind of politics-driven policies the current president is rolling out today. But perhaps its recent surge in popularity has less to do with the bill and more to do with where it led the US: into a trade war that ultimately worsened the Great Depression.
The impact of Smoot-Hawley is a cautionary tale that reinforces the message free-trade advocates are desperate to spread: that protectionism is bad for the economy. A group of economists, convened by the National Taxpayers Union, are taking the parallels between Smoot-Hawley and Trump’s tariffs even further. They are recycling a letter signed by 1,028 economists, sent to president Herbert Hoover in 1930 to protest the original bill, to warn the current White House occupant of the dangers of tariffs.
The new version of the letter, which is being circulated via a Google form, has already been signed by a few dozen prominent economists, including several Nobel laureates.
A lasting message
Barring a new introduction and a few edits, the current letter is identical to the original. Its main arguments are that tariffs on imports will increase consumer prices; that they will spur other countries to respond in kind, making American products more expensive abroad; and that they will create geopolitical tensions. “A tariff war does not furnish good soil for the growth of world peace,” it warns.
Bryan Riley, a Taxpayers Union trade expert who is behind the new letter, says he saw no need to rewrite the 1930 version because its ideas are timeless. “The very same things that economists were talking about in 1930 are all still relevant,” he notes.
Economists were as skeptical about the tariffs back then as they aretoday, because in both cases the reasons behind the taxes have more to do with politics than economics. The Smoot-Hawley bill’s stated goal was to bolster ailing American farmers, but it was useless in practice. Farmers at the time were suffering from depressed commodity prices worldwide, not cheap imports, according to Douglas Irwin, economics professor at Dartmouth College and author of Clashing over Commerce: A History of US Trade Policy.
“It was purely politics,” Irwin said during a presentation of the book last year. “Even the farmers realized that they’re exporting a lot of their crops. They don’t really need this act.” On top of that, the initial agricultural tariffs sent other lawmakers on a mission to protect their own state industries—also for political purposes.
Economists today say Trump is similarly using tariffs on steel and aluminum to pander to the states that produce them. Like the Smoot-Hawley bill, they will do little to help the workers they are intended to protect; these days jobs are largely being lost to technology, rather than to cheap imports. Meanwhile, the resulting higher costs for the metals will hit the industries that use them, which employ many more workers.
A message to Americans
The original letter did not convince lawmakers to rethink their protectionist instincts. Some dismissed its authors as “college professors who never earned a dollar by the sweat of their brow by honest labor,” and “intellectual free traders, who seem to be more concerned with the prosperity of foreigners than they are with the well-being of our own American people.”
Given the support of the bill among his party, Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley bill despite the economists’ warnings.
In 1972, Paul H. Douglas, who was an economics professor at the University of Chicago when he signed the 1930 letter, wrote about what happened next: “All our predictions came true. The Depression deepened and the Western democracies fell apart.” Still, he added, the letter later helped justify the need for Congress to lift the tariffs.
Riley, from the Taxpayers Union, says the hope is that the latest letter will similarly make a case for free trade. “We really want to show that support for the benefits of trade is widespread and overwhelming,” he says.
Daron Acemoglu, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, signed the new letter because he believes the policies coming out of the White House “are bound to hurt most Americans.” But he’s predicting that its contents will again be ignored.
“There is very little chance that the current administration, which is not interested in furthering anybody’s welfare other than the president and his immediate family, would listen to it,” he says.
千名經濟學家警告美國政府勿重蹈大蕭條覆轍
信源：新華網｜編輯：2018-05-05
包括諾貝爾經濟學獎得主、前美國總統經濟顧問在內的１１００多位經濟學家３日聯名致信美國總統特朗普和美國國會，警告美國政府不要采取加征關稅的保護主義政策，避免重蹈上世紀３０年代大蕭條的覆轍。
這封由美國全國納稅人聯合會公布的聯名信說，１９３０年，１０２８位經濟學家曾寫信敦促美國國會拒絕保護主義的《斯穆特－霍利關稅法》，但當時國會並未采納經濟學家建議，致使美國為此付出代價。如今，美國人又麵臨一係列新的保護主義舉措，包括威脅退出貿易協定，錯誤呼籲通過新關稅應對貿易不平衡，對洗衣機、太陽能組件和美國製造商使用的鋼鋁產品加征關稅等。
聯名信指出，雖然１９３０年以來發生了很大變化，比如貿易對美國經濟明顯更重要，但當時所解釋的基本經濟學原理並未改變。簽署這封聯名信的經濟學家強烈敦促美國政府和國會不要重蹈覆轍。
聯名信直接引用１９３０年經濟學家給美國國會的諫言信說：“我們深信提高保護性關稅是錯誤的。關稅總體而言將增加國內消費者必須支付的價格。更高水平的保護將提高生活成本和傷害大多數美國公民。”
經濟學家在信中警告，美國建築、運輸、公用事業、銀行、酒店、報社、批發和零售貿易以及許多其他行業的雇員都將是關稅保護措施的明顯輸家，因為他們並不生產任何被關稅壁壘保護的產品。同時，美國多數農民也將受到雙重傷害，一方麵作為消費者必須支付更高的產品價格，另一方麵作為生產者其農產品出口將受到限製。高關稅政策不可避免還會對國際關係產生影響，關稅戰不利於促進世界和平。
１９３０年時任美國總統胡佛簽署《斯穆特－霍利關稅法》，對兩萬多種進口產品征收高額關稅，引發主要貿易夥伴報複和掀起全球貿易戰。經濟學家普遍認為，這是加劇上世紀３０年代大蕭條的重要原因。
華盛頓智庫布魯金斯學會近期發布的研究顯示，如果全球爆發小型貿易戰，即關稅增加１０％，大多數經濟體國內生產總值（ＧＤＰ）將減少１％至４．５％，其中美國ＧＤＰ將損失１．３％；如果全球爆發嚴重貿易戰，即關稅增加４０％，全球經濟將重現上世紀３０年代的大蕭條。
Our Mission
National Taxpayers Union (NTU) is the Voice of America's Taxpayers. NTU mobilizes elected officials and the general public on behalf of tax relief and reform, lower and less wasteful spending, individual liberty, and free enterprise. Founded in 1969, we work at all levels for the day when every taxpaying citizen's right to a limited government is among our nation's highest democratic principles.
NTU Tariffs Letter Signature Form
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Open letter to President Trump and Congress:
In 1930, 1,028 economists urged Congress to reject the protectionist Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. Today, Americans face a host of new protectionist activity, including threats to withdraw from trade agreements, misguided calls for new tariffs in response to trade imbalances, and the imposition of tariffs on washing machines, solar components, and even steel and aluminum used by U.S. manufacturers.
Congress did not take economists’ advice in 1930, and Americans across the country paid the price. The undersigned economists and teachers of economics strongly urge you not to repeat that mistake. Much has changed since 1930 -- for example, trade is now significantly more important to our economy -- but the fundamental economic principles as explained at the time have not:[1] [note -- the following text is taken from the 1930 letter]
We are convinced that increased protective duties would be a mistake. They would operate, in general, to increase the prices which domestic consumers would have to pay. A higher level of protection would raise the cost of living and injure the great majority of our citizens.
Few people could hope to gain from such a change. Construction, transportation and public utility workers, professional people and those employed in banks, hotels, newspaper offices, in the wholesale and retail trades, and scores of other occupations would clearly lose, since they produce no products which could be protected by tariff barriers.
The vast majority of farmers, also, would lose through increased duties, and in a double fashion. First, as consumers they would have to pay still higher prices for the products, made of textiles, chemicals, iron, and steel, which they buy. Second, as producers, their ability to sell their products would be further restricted by barriers placed in the way of foreigners who wished to sell goods to us.
Our export trade, in general, would suffer. Countries cannot permanently buy from us unless they are permitted to sell to us, and the more we restrict the importation of goods from them by means of ever higher tariffs the more we reduce the possibility of our exporting to them. Such action would inevitably provoke other countries to pay us back in kind by levying retaliatory duties against our goods.
Finally, we would urge our Government to consider the bitterness which a policy of higher tariffs would inevitably inject into our international relations. A tariff war does not furnish good soil for the growth of world peace.
FIRST SIGNERS[2]
Alvin Roth, Stanford University
Richard H. Thaler, University of Chicago
Oliver D. Hart, Harvard University
Daron Acemoglu, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Roger Myerson, University of Chicago
N. Gregory Mankiw, Harvard University
Avinash K. Dixit, Princeton University
James Heckman, University of Chicago
Gene Grossman, Princeton University
Robert C. Merton, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Raymond Riezman, University of Iowa
James E. Anderson, Boston College
Donald J. Boudreaux, George Mason University
Robert Shiller, Yale University
Vernon Smith, Chapman University
J. Bradford Jensen, Georgetown University
Gary Hufbauer, Peterson Institute for International Economics
Robert E. Lucas, Jr., University of Chicago
Robert Engle, New York University
Eric Maskin, Harvard University
Gordon Hanson, UC San Diego
Eugene F. Fama, University of Chicago
