Egypt Daily News – Trump’s tariffs on the rest of the world came into effect on Saturday, April 5, 2025. While this move is not unprecedented, as the United States has regularly imposed high tariffs throughout its history, these measures have often resulted in unsatisfactory or even disastrous outcomes.
The new global tariffs, which are at least 10% on imports from all countries, have now been enforced. Higher punitive tariffs will be imposed on some countries, depending on the trade deficit. For example, imports from Germany and other EU countries to the U.S. will face a 20% tariff starting Wednesday, April 9, 2025.
This step represents the most aggressive action yet in Trump’s already combative trade policy. Economists have warned that American consumers will face significant price hikes, but consumers in Europe and other parts of the world will also feel the pressure. Trump praised the announcement of the tariffs on Wednesday, calling it “Liberation Day” and vowed that the tariffs would restore the “golden age” to the United States.
“From the 21st century to the 19th century” These tariffs imposed by Trump are not new, as the U.S. has historically imposed high tariffs, although they often failed to produce convincing results, sometimes even being disastrous. Douglas Irwin, an economics professor at Dartmouth College, wrote on X (formerly Twitter), “We have a 20th-century president in a 21st-century economy, who wants to take us back to the 19th century.”
The 19th century saw the golden age of tariffs in the U.S., with the tariff rates often approaching 50%. During this period, the U.S. followed a doctrine that advocated for protecting the economy until it could stabilize during the industrialization phase.
Keith Maskus, a professor at the University of Colorado, explained, “In-depth studies of that period show that tariffs helped protect industrial development to some extent,” but added that “the most important factors were access to international labor and capital, which were flowing into the U.S. at that time.”
Factors behind America’s industrial revival In addition to these factors, Christopher Meissner, a professor at the University of California, Davis, told AFP that “the reason behind a thriving industrial sector in the U.S. was our wide access to natural resources” such as coal, oil, iron ore, copper, and timber.
Trump often cites former President William McKinley, who enacted one of the strictest tariff laws in 1890, as an influence. However, this law did not prevent imports from continuing to grow in the following years. Even after tariff reductions in 1894, the volume of imported products remained lower than the levels seen previously.
Harvard professor George Rorbach wrote in 1929, “Since the end of the Civil War (1865), during which the U.S. was almost continuously under a protectionist system, our import trade expanded massively.” He continued, stating that “during this period of over sixty years, fluctuations in imports appeared to be primarily driven by factors other than tariff increases or decreases.”
In 1930, under President Herbert Hoover, the U.S. raised tariffs again with the Smoot-Hawley Act, which “was particularly noted for causing a global trade war and worsening the Great Depression,” according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The General Agreement on Trump’s tariffs and Trade (GATT) Keith Maskus pointed out that “the Great Depression, which was worsened and prolonged by tariffs, was driven by a combination of factors, but the tariff increases were one of them.” After World War II, a new era began with the signing of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1947 by 23 countries, including the U.S., which created favorable conditions for the growth of international trade through moderate tariffs.
This trend continued with the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Mexico and Canada in 1994, followed by the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995 and a free trade agreement between the U.S. and several Central American countries in 2004.
During his first term, Trump revived the use of tariffs and imposed strict measures on China, which were largely maintained by his Democratic successor Joe Biden. However, the U.S. trade deficit and Chinese imports continued to grow until 2022, when China experienced a significant economic slowdown not linked to the tariffs. Keith Maskus concluded, “This proves that (tariffs) rarely had an impact on imports from China.”
