Trump’s Trade Levy Could Repeat 1930s Market Freefall, Warns Hanke
On the social media platform X, American economist Steve Hanke—celebrated for his applied economics research, currency-reform work and monetary policy expertise—has been unabashedly voicing his disdain for Trump’s tariff measures. On Sunday, he took to X and said, “According to my friend and former colleague David Stockman, [President] Trump’s proposed tariffs will increase input costs for American businesses by $500 [billion].”
He then added that “tariffs [equal] an economic wrecking ball” in all capital letters. In another X post which features a video of Hanke, the economist cautions that current economic policies mirror those of the early 1930s, when the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act took effect. “And it’s something akin to what’s going on now, because, what was the environment in 1930?
The money supply was contracting. That caused a slowdown in the start of the Great Depression,” Hanke remarked.