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Trump tariffs are reshaping US trade policy and global economic ties
The article traces how Trump’s broad April tariffs have been compared with past US tariff eras, including the Smoot-Hawley Act and the 1789 Tariff Act.
The United States is facing a new international economic order centered on its relationship with China, as a new analysis from SCMP Economy argues that recent changes to Washington’s trade policy have reverberated through the global system. SCMP Economy points to President Donald Trump’s announcement of sweeping tariffs against virtually all of the US’s major trading partners in April of last year, noting that some observers have drawn parallels to earlier periods in American history.
The article compares the current approach with the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, signed by former President Herbert Hoover in June 1930, which targeted more than 20,000 imported goods and was enacted despite warnings from over 1,000 economists. SCMP Economy also references the Tariff Act of 1789, known as the “Alexander Hamilton tariff,” describing it as an early US policy linked to duties and subsidies meant to help nascent industries. The piece says historians and trade analysts view Trump’s second term duties as having consequences they describe as broader than earlier tariff episodes, including penalizing allies and reversing decades of open-market policies, even as the White House has said the strategy revives an economic agenda associated with sustained US growth.