By the late 1920s, the US economy was booming and had advantages that most of the world did not yet enjoy.

Manufacturing in America was extremely competitive due to mass electrification powering factories. Farmers had traded out horses and mules for trucks and tractors.

US productivity was surging.

Global trade was still recovering from World War I, but there was enough sense at the League of Nations (the precursor to the United Nations) to campaign against trade barriers.

The final report from the World Economic Conference in 1927 concluded that “the time has come to put an end to tariffs. . .”

But America decided to move in the opposite direction.

Two politicians, Willis Hawley and Reed Smoot put forth a plan to impose steep tariffs that reached as high as 59.1% on some products.

The infamous Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act passed in 1930, and almost immediately, countries around the world imposed their own retaliatory tariffs against the US.

Global trade plummeted as a result, which became a major factor in prolonging an almost never-ending and extremely painful economic depression.

I don’t think another Great Depression is in the cards right now, but frankly all these threats of tariffs are starting to have an impact.

Stock market investors are realizing that a recession is clearly on the table, and that business and consumer sentiment across the board have taken a nose dive.

That could all rebound just as quickly as it has fallen, but the larger point is that tariffs will absolutely make the country, and the world for that matter, much worse off.

The key reason is that tariffs force the economy to operate below its maximum potential.

Think about it on an individual basis. Imagine if Tom Cruise were sacking groceries instead of making movies. I think most people would probably acknowledge that creating multi-billion dollar box office hits is a hard thing to do, and sacking groceries would be below his potential.

The same goes for a trained and experienced neurosurgeon— picking turnips is not the best use of his or her time.

The US economy is certainly capable of producing just about anything. But there’s no point in deliberately producing below your potential— i.e. taking scarce talent and resources away from more valuable more productive sectors, and instead focusing that energy to make socks and underwear.

If an economy consistently underachieves its potential, everyone is worse off as a result— regardless of whether that results in a near-term recession.

The US has the potential in small-scale nuclear reactors, and emerging technology in AI, automation, robotics, and high-performance computing to create a level of abundance and prosperity that is almost unimaginable. That advantage is specific to the United States and that reality could be just a few years away because most of that technology exists or is close.

And that’s what the US needs to get out of its $36 trillion debt problem— a productivity and innovation driven economic boom.

Tariffs throw cold water on the whole thing.

This is what we discuss in today’s podcast.

We also touch on:

You can listen here.

https://youtu.be/gisCd7pMpS8

(The podcast transcript is available to you here.)