Tariffs Mean Electoral Defeat for the GOP
The Trump administration is looking for an exit strategy from the most destructive parts of its trade war. The uncertainty is heightening the risk of a recession. Millions of business supply chains have been dismantled. The postwar trading system, responsible for 80 years of peace and prosperity, is in tatters. Some of the damage is irreversible. But if history is any guide, the latest protectionist experiment will soon be over.
While protectionists portray the 18th and 19th centuries as a happy period when Americans prospered behind tariff protections, nothing is further from the truth. Americans have historically hated high tariffs and never suffered them for long. Almost 300 years ago American colonists revolted against repeated British efforts to impose tariffs on American imports. Colonists defied the 1733 Molasses Tariff with widespread smuggling. Crying 'taxation without representation,' they mounted a crusade against the 1767-68 Townshend Acts that forced Parliament to repeal them. The Tea Act of 1773 sparked the Boston Tea Party and was effectively repealed at Lexington and Concord.
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