17 June 1930: Hoover signs the Smoot-Hawley tariff
On June 17, 1930 President Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, raising duties on thousands of imported goods, despite a petition from more than 1,000 economists urging a veto. Trading partners retaliated, and world trade fell sharply in the following years. Most economists believe it worsened the Great Depression, making Smoot-Hawley a lasting shorthand for protectionism gone wrong.
The lesson: Trade barriers invite retaliation; the overall cost of a trade war is usually greater than the gain.
Could you have called it at the time? The wheel picks the year, you pick the position, ten seconds a pick.
Play Sixty-40