Reply #95: What? You mean the Smoot-Hawley tariff didn't cause or worsen the Great Depression?

[bulloney]

That was the RW talking point to discredit opponents of NAFTA.

RW talking heads continue to use Smoot-Hawley as their excuse for the cause of the GD. Republicans had controlled the White House and both houses of Congress in the decade leading up to the cause of the GD. They were deregulating markets and reducing taxes for the wealthy during that time, too. Smoot-Hawley didn't pass Congress until months after the 1929 Stock Market Crash. In other words, the policies and dynamics that caused the GD were in place and were allowed to fester long before any tariff could have made an impact.