Since Free Traders believe that America should lower its standard of living to help the third world

[pampango]

163. Next? Smoot-Hawley was bad republican policy. That much is not a myth. FDR knew it.

He campaigned against it and got around it once he was elected.

It is true that trade was a very small part of the US economy back then as your link to the other OP indicates. Those who think that Smoot-Hawley caused the Depression are indeed wrong. However FDR understood that the tariffs made economic recovery from the Depression more difficult which is why he enacted so many bilateral trade deals during his administration. His desire to prevent the return of high republican tariffs was also why he pushed for a more open global trading system with low tariffs in the post-WWII world.

It is interesting that republicans sought to raise tariffs with Smoot-Hawley even though, as the OP you referenced indicates, trade was such a tiny portion (11%) of the economy. Why did they increase tariffs if trade was so inconsequential? Because it's always easier to blame foreigners than it is to restructure your own society.

(Interestingly, trade is still a much smaller part of our economy (22%) than it is in Canada (42%), Germany (80%) and Sweden (90%). And yet, despite trade's relatively small size in our economy, just like in the Smoot-Hawley days, many focus on tariffs to punish foreigners, while the really progressive countries do nothing of the sort.)

With regards to China, you seem to want to adopt the Chinese model of economics rather than a European one. While the US' level of inequality is the worst in the developed world, China's is even worse. Europe's progressive economies are to me a better example of what the US should strive for than is China.

BTW, you mentioned tariffs in China. Perhaps you have different information, but the figures I have are that tariffs in China (averaging 2007 to 2009) equal 1.9% of their total imports which is higher than the US (1.2%) and the EU (1.1%) but not by very much. Are you suggesting that raising our tariffs by 0.7% would solve our problems? And if that didn't solve our problems is there some other way that we could blame our continuing problems on foreigners?