Letter: Trump needs history lesson on tariff

Donald Trump needs to read some history so he doesn't repeat the same mistake Republicans made many years ago. What I'm talking about is his idea of imposing a 45 percent tariff on goods coming from China and other trading partners.

Here is what happened when we tried something similar from 1929-34:

On June 17, 1930, President Herbert Hoover signed into law the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act which had been overwhelmingly passed by the Republican majority in Congress. What the act did was impose high tariffs on thousands of goods imported into the U.S. - its goal was to protect American jobs and American farmers from foreign competition. It is the same thing that Trump is talking about today.

I guess the Republicans didn't figure out that our trading partners might retaliate and do the same to us and they did. Trading partners like Canada, France, Britain, and Germany and many others increased their tariffs on American goods. The result was U.S. imports decreased 66 percent from 1929-33, while U.S. exports decreased 61 percent. It was a contributing factor to the depth and length of the Great Depression.

I suggest Trump do some studying about raising tariffs - the results were disastrous in the 1930s.

Peter Bungum

Anamosa