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  • Now, I don't want to give anyone the false impression that tariffs are out of control;

  • in fact, on average, tariffs on traded goods are lower than they were at any point in the

  • 20th century. Let me give you a little background first: in the 1920s, when Herbert Hoover was

  • running for office, he made a campaign promise to US farmers to protect them from foreign

  • competition if he was elected to office. Once he was elected, he needed legislative support

  • to get a bill moving through Congress. Getting started wasn't so bad; legislators from farming

  • states were more than happy to sponsor such a bill -- but that wasn't enough votes to

  • actually get it passed. So what you do if you're seeking support for a farming protection

  • bill from people who care nothing about farming? What if, for example, you're approaching a

  • representative from Detroit? How do you make the proposed bill more interesting? Add a

  • line or two about protecting the automakers, perhaps? And so it went: a little something

  • for car makers, furniture producers, textile manufacturersin the end, the Smoot-Hawley

  • Bill entailed protection for over 20,000 US products.

  • Now, other countries in the world weren’t sitting idly by while Smoot-Hawley was making

  • its rounds; they were, to say the least, rather unhappy at the prospect of restrictions on

  • so many of their own products. In an attempt to stop the US, other countries threatened

  • to impose restrictions of their own if Smoot-Hawley passed. Some countries, like Canada, wrote

  • their own protectionist legislation, while others simply said that they would boycott

  • US products. Nonetheless, in 1929 the Smoot-Hawley Bill became law -- the first shot in global

  • trade war. Between 1929 and 1932, the total volume of world trade fell from a total value

  • of about $3 billion to only $1 billion, making Smoot-Hawley one of the major contributing

  • factors to the Great Depression.

  • Europe was soon embroiled in World War II, with the US to follow. After the war, countries

  • around the world agreed that perhaps the trade brawl had been a mistake that ought not to

  • be repeated, and many of them sat down and formed an agreement, to begin scaling back

  • the tariff restrictions. This was the birth of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade,

  • or GATT. At their highest, around 1930, the average level of tariffs on traded goods was

  • at about 70%, nearly doubling the prices on imported goods. With the first full round

  • of GATT in 1947, tariffs were reduced to about 40%, and then reduced further with each subsequent

  • round. By 1993, GATT was in its ninth round, the Uruguay Round, and tariffs were down to

  • about 2 to 3% average on traded goods.

  • Here's the thing, though: just because governments have agreed to cut tariffs, does this mean

  • that the weak domestic industries stop wanting protection? No! So if you sign an agreement

  • that says your country won’t use tariffs, does this necessarily mean that no protection

  • will be used? No; in fact, with the decline in tariffs came an increase in quotas. So

  • then GATT began to address quotas. With the decline in quotas came increase in the use

  • of voluntary export restraints (VERs), or other nontariff barriers (NTBs), like health

  • and safety restrictions.

  • Take a look at the duration of each round. Do you notice that each round gets longer

  • and longer? That's because 1) it gets harder and harder totrim the fat,” 2) the most

  • contentious products -- usually agriculture -- kept getting put on the back burner, and

  • 3) the Uruguay Round was the first to try to deal with the trade restrictions placed

  • on services. Back when GATT started, it was dealing only with hard goods, like cars and

  • refrigerators; trade in financial services, technical consulting, and the like, didn't

  • appear until later. It took the better part of nine years to complete the Uruguay Round,

  • and when it was done, not only were there reductions in protection, but also the old

  • GATT was gone. It evolved into the World Trade Organization, or WTO. The WTO is meant to

  • serve as a place for trade dispute mediation. If one country has a complaint about another

  • country’s trade policies, that complaint can be heard by the WTO.

  • Here's an interesting tidbit from The Economist magazine: as of 2009, the US was the single

  • most challenged country, i.e. the country that has had the most complaints lodged against

  • it for unfair trade policies. However, we are also the single largest complaining nation.

  • The US has lodged more complaints against other countries than any other single nation.

  • Keep these facts in mind for WTO discussion that well be having in our next face-to-face

  • class.

  • NEXT TIME: Trade blocs TRANSCRIPT00EPISODE 37: GATT/WTO

Now, I don't want to give anyone the false impression that tariffs are out of control;

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