The Tariff Debate: What History Tells Us

Puck magazine, 1897 (Library of Congress)

By the Editors

Tariffs are back.

President Donald Trump has made news early in his second administration with his plans to impose new tariffs.

But protectionism is nothing new in American life. American leaders since Alexander Hamilton have advocated protective tariffs.

What can America’s long history with tariffs tell us about our current situation?

To provide much-needed historical perspective, the Coolidge Review has brought together three assessments of America’s protectionist past:

• Former SEC chairman Christopher Cox examines earlier anti-tariff arguments and how they relate to the present

• Policy historian John Hendrickson reflects on Republican protectionism from Abraham Lincoln to Herbert Hoover

• The Wall Street Journal’s Mary Anastasia O’Grady looks at the impact—economic and political—of twentieth-century American tariffs