US economists are mobilizing against Donald Trump’s protectionist measures. The interdependence of developed and emerging countries, but also the dependence on global trade are today too important to take the risk of changing the rules abruptly. In view of the on cooperative political climate, we can not rule out retaliation and escalation that would be very detrimental to growth, employment and standard of living. The experiences of the past must necessarily help us to think.
“Over a thousand economists have written to Donald Trump warning his “economic protectionism” and tough rhetoric on trade threatens to repeat the mistakes the US made in the 1930s, mistakes that plunged the world into the Great Depression.
The 1,140 economists, including 14 Nobel prize winners, sent the letter on Thursday amid an escalating row over trade between the US and the European Union. Trump has imposed tariffs on steel and aluminium imports but has granted temporary reprieves to the EU, Australia and other countries.
“In 1930, 1,028 economists urged Congress to reject the protectionist Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act,” the authors write, citing a trade act that many economists argue was one of the triggers for the Great Depression….”
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