In early 1930 President Hoover offered words of encouragement and optimism, proclaiming on one occasion (against all the evidence) that the "fundamental business of the country is on a sound and prosperous basis." Otherwise, he kept the government out of the way of the hoped-for self-adjustments in the capitalist markets. Eight months after the stock-market crash, however, the president and Congress made what is now considered to have been a major blunder. Congress enacted the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, which the president signed into law on 17 June 1930. Promoted by the Republican Party, the new law raised tariffs (taxes on goods coming into United States from foreign countries) to 49 percent on agricultural raw materials and 34 percent on many manufactured goods — the highest levels in American history. The tariff proved to be a disaster. Within two years America's major trading partners retaliated by putting up high tariff barriers of their.....
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