Donald Trump thinks ‘tariff’ is the ‘most beautiful word in the dictionary’. Today is ‘Liberation Day’, and the US president is holding true to his campaign trail promise to impose tariffs on imports. Cars, steel and aluminium are expected to be hit with levies of up to 25 per cent. A 10 to 20 per cent universal tariff on all goods imported into the United States is also said to be on the cards.
Trump isn’t the first to think tariffs are a secret weapon. A century ago, the British Conservatives’ were obsessed by tariffs. Like Trump, they saw them as an ideal tool to promote industrial revival and lower taxes. Unfortunately, as Trump will likely discover, the results were disappointing.
From the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 until the Great Depression of 1929, free trade was an article of faith for the British electorate who associated it with the prosperity of the mid-nineteenth century.
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