Latest news with #CordellHull
Wall Street Journal
09-06-2025
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
Protectionists Misread U.S. History on Trade
In his op-ed 'Where the Trade Court's Tariff Decision Went Wrong' (June 2), George E. Bodgen uses the technique of misrepresenting the words of respected historical figures to support his protectionist views. It's true, for instance, that Cordell Hull advocated reciprocal trade agreements as a means of reducing tariffs. But when he praised reciprocity for reducing 'excessive economic barriers to trade,' he didn't, contrary to Mr. Bogden's claim, refer to 'unfair trade practices targeting the U.S.' An internationalist, Hull hoped that U.S.-led efforts to reduce tariffs worldwide would promote peace. He understood that, for political reasons, governments will cut tariffs only in exchange for cuts by other governments. Moreover, the trade negotiations that Hull envisioned were from existing tariff rates. He would have been appalled by the U.S. suddenly jacking up rates and then bullying other countries into negotiating them back down.
Wall Street Journal
01-06-2025
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
Where the Trade Court's Tariff Decision Went Wrong
During a national crisis, an advocate of tariffs testified before Congress that 'reciprocal trade agreements' push foreign nations to stop erecting 'excessive economic barriers to trade.' Who said this? President Trump? Sen. Reed Smoot or Rep. Willis Hawley? It was President Franklin D. Roosevelt's secretary of state, Cordell Hull, explaining in 1940 how reciprocal tariffs could reverse unfair trade practices targeting the U.S.
