JIM “PAPPY” MOORE: Trump & Tariffs: Leveling the Playing Field

I was a History major in college, graduating with Honors while being the leader of the University’s Honorary History Society. I had 42 semester hours of History, focused mostly on American History. One of the causes cited for The Great Depression has been the Smoot-Hawley tariffs. Those who oppose tariffs often cite it as the cause of The Great Depression.

Harkening back to Smoot-Hawley is misplaced. This is the year 2025. Some may want to equate today with the days of Smoot-Hawley but I would argue that Smoot-Hawley did not bring on the Depression. It was a combination of factors. Easy, low credit requirements made stock speculation insane, bidding up through manipulation false values was the driver. Laws which made farmers essentially indentured servants for banking interests was another.

The Dust Bowl of mid America which decimated farming in the Midwest was another cause of The Great Depression. My father’s family were cotton pickers in the 1930s, dirt poor and working hard to survive. The rapid social changes following the transition from horse and buggy to automobile, another cause of The Great Depression. The change from rural domination to urban domination another. Unsettled international issues left over from WWI another.

Historians who latch onto a single cause for The Great Depression like they are Saul seeing the light on the road to Damascus are failing to see the big picture.

Tariffs by other countries in the past 40 years have hobbled American manufacturers, which have not had their goods protected against other countries which place their tariffs upon our goods to give their home goods protection from American competition.

America has loaded down its own manufacturing with regulation after regulation. We have weighed down our manufacturers with all manner of laws and regulation (largely by government edict at the national level) while buying our goods from countries with no such restrictions. Regulations have marched America out of international competitions more than any one factor. This is why the whole Climate Change imperative is absurd.

If China and India are not restricting their air and water pollution, what good are such onerous provisions on American manufacturers? Globally, Climate Change is a tempest in a teapot, largely about nothing of significance. CO2 is converted to oxygen. More CO2 means more plant growth, which means more oxygen.

We must level the playing field for trade in two ways: First, by imposing tariffs which equal those of international competitors, and Second, by cutting back on the excessive regulations which make our production too pricey to compete internationally. Trump understands all this, and that’s why he is moving on both fronts.

We must allow American manufacturers to compete globally. We must stop hobbling them with excessive regulation. We must give our manufacturers the ability to compete with China and India.