2016 Postmortem

Last edited Sun Dec 4, 2016, 08:19 PM - Edit history (1)

The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act in 1930 was the GOP's and supported by the "progressive" (sarcasm) Hoover.
These are historical facts.

It was FDR and the progressive Democrats of the 1930s who moved the country toward free trade. Every President until Trump has been a free trader. Even the most progressive Democratic candidate of our times, George McGovern was a free trader. NAFTA was more of the same-- supported by both parties, although the Left did begin to oppose free trade treaties like NAFTA in the 90's, before Trump. Bernie Sanders for one voted against it.

Here is but one article on the history-- I can't quote the whole thing but read it through:
There is nothing controversial here.

https://hbr.org/2016/04/americas-uneasy-history-with-free-trade
"We seem to be awash in opinions about free trade these days. From U.S. presidential campaign rhetoric to the recently signed 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, it might feel like this debate has just started. But debate over trade is as old as the American republic, and it is intertwined with economic theories of competition and geopolitics
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As decades passed, the general trend was toward higher tariffs to protect northern manufacturing; the trend culminated in the highly restrictive Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930.
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Four years later, however, the tide started to reverse. At that time, President Franklin Roosevelt’s Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, was a dyed-in-the-wool free-trader (reflecting the interests of his state of Tennessee) and he was determined to reverse the high-tariff policies embodied in the the Smoot-Hawley act.
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His answer was to negotiate foreign trade agreements. The U.S. would reduce its tariffs, but only in exchange for partner nations reducing theirs. Congress authorized such negotiations in the landmark Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934. This new law provided, moreover, that once the lower rates were negotiated, they could be implemented through presidential proclamation. No further Congressional action was required. And the lower rates would be extended to all major US trading partners."
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The Right and the GOP were the last protectionists, so it is fitting that Trump is bringing them back to their roots. Bernie Sanders was also interested in returning the country to more protectionist policies on the Left. But really free trade versus protectionism is not a matter of right/left policy. NAFTA however was the first free trade policy rejected by liberals-- so the Left has wanted to return to protectionism before the Right in modern times. So in that sense you are correct.