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Trade & Tariffs in American History | Yaron Brook Show

Aug 02, 2025•1 hr 20 min
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📺 The Yaron Brook Show | August 2, 2025 | Trade & Tariffs in American History

👉 [https://youtube.com/live/BoTCWQxD96I](https://youtube.com/live/BoTCWQxD96I)

What if the biggest threat to American prosperity isn’t foreign nations—but our own economic ignorance? In this fiery episode, Yaron Brook takes you on a journey through the forgotten history of trade and tariffs in the United States. From Alexander Hamilton’s protectionist dreams to the Smoot-Hawley disaster and today’s populist trade wars, Yaron exposes the persistent myth that government can "protect" American jobs by punishing trade.

He dismantles the nationalist fairy tales told by both the left and right—showing how tariffs hurt the very people they claim to help, stifle innovation, and betray the founding ideals of liberty and individualism. Expect no mercy for economic fallacies—this is Yaron Brook at his intellectual best: challenging the populists, correcting the historians, and defending capitalism with uncompromising clarity.

đź”´ Watch now and discover why real economic patriotism means free trade, not trade wars.

đź’Ą Expect controversy. Expect insight. Expect truth.

🧠 Thought-provoking. Bold. Unapologetically rational.  If you’re looking for intellectual fuel, moral clarity, and some philosophical firepower—you’re in the right place.

💬 Leave your thoughts in the comments—what topic should Yaron cover next?

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Transcript

Speaker 1

A lot of the fundamental principles I've READO national self interest and individual rts. This is the Uran Brook Show. All right, everybody, welcome to your one book show on this Saturday, August second.

Speaker 2

I hope everybody is having.

Speaker 1

A fantastic weekend. I'm busy packing, you know, traveling tomorrow to lizb and Portugal. I'll be gone for two months, two months. I'll be in uh Portugal, in Italy for two months. So busy packing, organizing, getting anything ready, and always have time for you guys for for another show. So I thought we talked today better topic. I just been uh really three days, eight hours talking about at the Peterson Academy. I just got back from there a few days ago, and uh and and I did a

whole eight hours on trade. It was it was, I think, really cool. You know, you guys should check it out. You should go to Peterson Academy. Just use use the link that has my name in it. So I get credit for you going for me. But uh, what you what you'll get there is eight hours on trade and tariffs and the history and the economics.

Speaker 2

I spent a whole you know, over an hour on.

Speaker 1

Examples of specialization and division of labor and and compartitive advantage and what they all mean and how they all work and running through an example. Uh and uh. And then you know, we go over the history and then we talk about kind.

Speaker 2

Of tariffs and what they are and how they work.

Speaker 1

We talked about milkitialism and neo milk indalism. That's what I you know, that's what we call Donald Trump and his people around him the new milk in the lists and and what what that implies and what that means. And then we talked about objections to globalization, objections to trade and uh and and you know, so we cover it a lot a lot of content in eight hours.

It was great. So if you have a check out the Pederston Academy, I will have I think by the end of the year five courses on the Pedasent Academy Capitalism and Finance are already up there. You know a lot of people are watching those. And then there's going to be trade, and there's going to be money, and there's going to be the corporation kind of business history and uh. Those all I think, I think really good courses,

kind of cool. So yeah, take advantage of it. You can You can get an annual You pay one annual fee and then you can watch whatever you want. You can watch as many courses as you want. So h you know those five if I do a few more than just just watching my courses, will make worth the annual commitment, the annual financial commitment. All right.

Speaker 2

So yeah, so let's talk about trade.

Speaker 1

Let's talk about trade, and to talk about the history of trade, I mean, I want to talk about trade in America, but the history of trade more broadly, one has to understand I think really two things so important to here. One is the trade has always been a part of human life. Trade goes back to a time where we were tribal and tribes traded. And if you go back to two thousand BC, you already see quite

a bit of trade across geography. You know. You you even see, you know, stuff coming down from northern Europe where there's nothing with a bunch of barbarians h Northern Europe trading with uh you know, certain uh Greek cities.

We're trading with the Egyptians who are trading with the Mesopotamiams and uh you know, so certainly by a thousand BC, you get you get substantial trade, and of course all of them are trading for the East with India, and India is trading with China, so indirectly there trading with China. And then by the time you get the Greek classical period, there's it's even more just explicit. You know, there's trade across the Mediterranean all the way to Spain. There's trade

up some of the European rivers into northern Europe. There's trade to India and China and Egypt, and trade robust trade is a is a a real part.

Speaker 2

Of human history. You just can't separate the two.

Speaker 1

And of course, once the Europeans discovered a way around the corner of the Horn of af, once the Age of Discovery begins, trade explodes. The Europeans are, you know, sending lots of ships to Asia to trade Primeallyy to India and Indonesia and what are called the Spice Islands. And the main thing that Europeans are trading for the thing that they want the most spices, Like Europeans are suddenly discovering that food has flake, can have flavor that

they taste. Buds are not limited to a narrow spectrum of food stuff. They discover spice and they start importing spices. Farm Asia and its spices are some of the most lucrative, if not the most lucrative, you know, trading features. So spices are coming in and and so there's a lot of trading, and then of course that evolves into ultimately into you know, somebody says black peppers, black peck and cefron and cinnamon and a variety of different of these

of these just flavors that Europeans are not experienced. Remember you're you know, in spite of tea time in England, you have had a discovered teeth in the Chinese, that discovered coffee from ultimately from Ethiopia. I mean, all the stuff that actually tastes really really good comes in through trade, right, So trade is blowing up, and then of course with the trade routes into Asia and through Africa, the Europeans

start colonizing. And part of the motivation for colonization, and I found this really interesting is the economic ideology of Melcanalism. Mercanalism really drives the idea of colonial colonizing.

Speaker 2

So, you know, if we.

Speaker 1

Think about trade as win win, well, why colonize places when you can trade with them. Why do you need to colonize India, Why do you need to colonize on the Asian countries? Why can't you just set up trade shops there and trade with them. And here's the problem that you view trade as win lose Europe I mean,

Mercanalism is a philosophy. It's an ideology of trade as being fundamentally win lose, and that export and thus having precious metals flow into your country is a win, and imports, importing cotton or textiles or spices for that matter, and giving up precious matter for it isn't at loss. So the philosophy of moketalism, you know, kind of guides the various empires to.

Speaker 2

Set up colonies.

Speaker 1

The colonies are basically there to provide war materials to the mother country and to buy finished goods from the money mother countries. So they're there to suck up war materials, natural resources and to import to themselves, constituting export to the mother country of goods. And thus this is perceived as this is a this is this is the winning strategy. This is what trade is all about. This is what

uh you know, winning is all about. This is what winning looks like money flowing in UH and and and uh stuff flowing out. The only thing other than money coming in UH of natural resources to be able to produce the stuff.

Speaker 2

And you know, this.

Speaker 1

Probably holds back the West in terms of wealth significantly. This attitude of milkanalism, it explains some of what happens during colonialism. It explains the whole attitude of you know, and and and attitude towards the colonies and the attempt kind of the kind of trade that happens between England and the colonies, or the French and the colonies, Belgian the colonies. It explains that the exploitation that does happen in these places, because motionalism is a system believed that

embraces exploitations. This is wind lose, you want to make sure the other party loses. And so this is kind of the context of seventeenth and eighteenth century European trade. It's robust, but it is all done on a long premise which guides trade not to win win maximizing win win relationship with guides it towards maximizing the amount of money. You know, the European nations accumulating gold and silver rather

than the amount of wealth that they are accumulating. And there's a lot of lost efficiency, a lot of lost productivity. I mean, there's a real sense in which the industry revolution happens and it's success in spite of the milk and salistic attitudes that so many in you have look at the list. Attitudes also involve much more central planning that otherwise, and much more goment involvement in everything going around,

not just trade but production itself. And during this period there were a number of thinkers, a number of economists, and I'm intellectuals is saying, you know this, all this is wrong. It just doesn't make any sense. Trade fundamentally is win win. You guys are getting it all wrong. Molcanalism is wrong. But nobody's really listening. None of them have kind of the weight. None of them have they

fleshed out arguments. None of them have the case really worked out for free trade and for what free trade would entail until Adam Smith. And Adam Smith in the sense is a pivotal figure. Annas Smith basically you know, argues that mercualism is wrong. He criticizes their obsession with trades si pluses, the holding of gold and a A Smouth advocates, I mean, this is the wealth of nations for free trade, for competition, and really all based on the idea of the value of specialization, the value of

the division of labor. And a Smith sees how if British industry specializes in the thing they're good at, and in India they specialize in the things they're good at, and Indonesia they specializing in the things they're good at, and Africa they, you know, whatever country in Africa, individuals specialize in the things that they are good at, and then they all trade, everybody benefits. He doesn't quite have

the concept of comparative advantage. That is that is Ricardo about forty years later, forty one years later exactly who

develops that? But I mean the fundamental is division of labor and specialization, and therefore the value of trade as a consequence of division of labor and specialization, and that if trade is win win, you want everybody to specialize, and then you want a trade and you want no barriers to that trade, because any barrier to trade is a barrier of specialization, it's a barrier to division of labor. You want every human being on planet Earth to do

what they're good at. What they have what we call it will call a comparative advantage in But you want every individual out there to specialize and become an expert in what they do and then to trade, and everybody is dramatically better off. Specialization not only makes is more efficient, but also as you specialize, you become better at what

you do. You learn a massive learning curve. By specializing, you learn the topic, you figure it out, you find better ways to do it, and that increases dramatically efficiency. And ultimately, mechanization comes from specialization. You see something done, you understand how it's done. Now you can start thinking about how to I make a machine do it instead,

and this drives drives economic growth, it drives progress. Now at the time Adam Smith is writing, though England politically is dominated by the Mercatalists, and they have tariffs, they have government granted monopolies. An ansth called the Navigation Act, which is very similar to the Jones Act but worse. It basically says that if you want to enter a British port, you have to be flying a British flag. The ship has to be a British ship, only Brits

can facilitate trade with Britain. In other words, can have other navies, other other ships carrying other flags carry goods into a British port. Again, you know, kind of a monopoly for British shipping. So this is the time of really high levels of protectionism and Jurdan and Poleonic wars. It only gets worse. So seventeen ninety three to eighteen fifteen, this post Wealth of Nations was seventeen seventy six, and nobody's really paying attention. Everybody admires Adam Smith reads his

book and then ignores it. The idea of a war means to the Brits, oh, we need to become self sufficient emergency. It's not familiar. So they become even more aggressive in terms of trade barriers. Indeed, at they end of this war, limit passes what's called the Corn Laws of eighteen fifteen. They place a huge tariff on inputed grain.

And this of course is supported by the aristocrats who are their landowners, who are profiting from artificially high prices because they're not facing any competition from a global from around the world. And indeed, these laws become kind of a symbol of aristocratic privilege. And protectionist policies, and the beneficiaries are clear, more so.

Speaker 2

In England than let's say, later in America.

Speaker 1

Who benefits is very, very very is very clear from these laws, but immediately once they pass is already prescious. So the intellectual movement for free trade is growing in England from the publication of atimsmus Wealth of Nation. And of course, and already in the eighteen twenties you start seeing slowly and erosion in tariffs and an attempt mild as it is, to start reducing tariffs and bring about

more trade. I mean, the Corn Acts were particularly sensitive because they're protecting they're protecting British farmers who are basically the landowners, the aristocrats from you know, much more efficient producers of food, for example, the Americans and parts of Europe, which are producing food a lot cheaper than the than the English. And of course this is also a period in England, this is industrializing. A lot of people are

leaving the farm, they're going to the city. Supplying food to the cities becomes a major problem and a major issue. Food is expensive, People are hungry, people are poor, and it's the poor and the hungry, if you will, are part of the Russia placed on Parliament to reduce the tarots. The indudry Industrial Revolution is turning Britain into the workshop of the world. They are making stuff.

Speaker 2

And so there's there's now, you know, significant pressure.

Speaker 1

David ricardo Theory of comparative advantage is published in eighteen seventeen, which provides a powerful economic qussion off of free trade. Countries should specialize just like individuals, and trading should be free. So in eighteen twenty eight they passed kind of a sliding scale for grain duties partial relief because there's there's starvation that people people hungry and complaining and they're trying to appease appease the public, so they do this in

order to appease them. But during the nineteenth thirties you really get momentum, and here it's intellectual momentum, not just political momentum. In eighteen thirties you get the Anti corn Law League, which is led by by politicians slash intellectuals, and they gain a lot of strength, a lot of power. Within England. They are educating people, educate, educate, educate, just like the abolitionist movement in England and in the United States.

The primary focus was on education, and they argued the free trade with low prices, reduce poverty, stimulate the industry, and you know, through economic interdependence bring peace, which mostly works but not always. Ultimately eighteen forty six you get a serious Irish famine and a and by the way, that the people supporting the tariffs, of course, the Conservatives.

But in eighteen forty six andative Conservative Prime Minister Robert Peel breaks with the Conservative Party and joins the Liberal Party and the Opposition Party and repeal the corn Laws and basically start a half century of unilateral free trade. That is, Britain becomes an island of zero tariffs. It doesn't do deals, it doesn't do deals with other countries. It just lowes tawifs to zero and trades with anybody

who's willing to trade with him. It's from eighteen forty six on they slowly repeal all the other laws and uh in spite of the battle, you know, in spite of the opposition by the aristocrats. This is a real blow to the aristocrats in England, but it's it's part of kind of the the the change that British society, British economy is going through as it enters the modern era.

Speaker 2

And of course a lot of economic.

Speaker 1

Nationalists and farmers and but mainly was the aristocrats who opposed this, uh, supporting the liberalization with the industrialists and manufacturers, the middle class, the new working class who are relatively poor, but we're going to benefit from cheaper food prices. And of course they once saying corn the corn low is

is abolished. Cheap food just flows into the UK. Uh and uh, you know the United States, So that's exploding, for example, food to the UK, as do parts of Europe, Ukraine, Uh, you know Russia where there is fertile ground and they can they grow food quite cheaply, start imputting food into Great Britain. From that point on, Britain phases out all

the regulations. So in eighteen forty nine they repeal the old navigation acts that have required the goods imported into Britain or its colonies how to be transported in British ships. That is repealed. That is huge for international trade. Eighteen fifty four they repealed the Merchant Ship Act of eighteen fifty They they established sorry, the Merchant Shipping Act, which cleaned up all other remnants of any kind of restrictions on trade.

Speaker 2

I mean, really.

Speaker 1

Brit becomes unilaterals, zero tariff, no trade restrictions during this period, and really that continues.

Speaker 2

And sad World War One.

Speaker 1

I mean, it is amazing how many good things end in World War One, how many bad things instituted just before during World War One. World War One is really a turning point historically against capitalism away from and I Ran talked about there was a different sense of life before World War One. There was a different attitude towards living, and there was a different attitude towards art, and of course towards towards trade and capitalism. World War One was

a monumentally horrific negative event in human history. It really did turn so much of the population against the values that against romanticism and arts, and against capitalism and against really liberty, and of course it sets up World War One, sets up World War two. It destroys benevolences, milelevelence, and it destroys individualism, and it basest collectivism and nationalism. The nationalist movements really come to the foray in World War One and the post World War One and leading up to,

of course the implosion of World War two. So between eighteen forty six and nineteen fourteen, Britain, which is at the heart of the industry revolution, Britain that is basically as the most important navy in the world, a navy dedicated now to free trade. Ran at some point somewhere it talks about the fact that British farm Party in

the nineteenth century was basically gunboat diplomacy. Boat diplomacy dedicated to opening up the sea lanes for trade, opening up ports for trade, making it possible to engage in araide free of privacy and free of cos and free of force. Uh And and really if a country resisted trade with the British, it's gunships would enter the port, bomb a few buildings and the rulers would change their mind and

start trading with the UK with with the bits. That was what gunboat diplomacy was like, and all in the name of free trade. It is the only country that I know of in history that has been dedicated to the principle of free trade. And in that sense it was a huge success that that the failure of Britain during this period while were it's colonies, it has spent so much money on expanding and preserving and defending and exploiting.

I guess even and its colonies that it ultimately bankrupted Britain, the colonies that I mean people today think the colonialism is what made capitalism possible. I mean, that's absurd. Actually colonialism drained the capitalism in England from resources, and the consequence of that are both socialism rose in England and of course England abandoned capitalism completely at the end of World War One. Right, World War One was a turning point for the abandonment of capitalism.

Speaker 2

So that is what's going on in Britain. Unilateral free trade.

Speaker 1

It's what I argue America should become zero tasks, zero trade barriers. Bring your good sell them here. You know in American businesses compete, compete. That is your mission in life to compete with everybody else. Right. Uh.

Speaker 2

And you know this is this is also a time.

Speaker 1

In England when the monopoly is have broken apart, that is, the government granted monopolies and trade is now not exclusive to the East India Company or something like that.

Speaker 2

Trade is now open to competition.

Speaker 1

Uh. And industries industries were always competitive in England, but any semblance of central planning and control, this is the freest period in British history and some of the freest ever in world history is eighteen forty six to nineteen fourteen. And note that in Britain free trade is more important than as we'll see in the US. Why is it more important because Britain is small, it's small geographically, it doesn't have natural resources, it's relatively small population, it's small.

So for Britain to do to thrive, it has to

have trade, it has to have global free trade. The United States, in comparison, is huge, filled in the natural resources and dramatically growing in population during this period during the nineteenth century, and it could sustain itself in some ways because it's got so much division of labor and specialization happening within and there's so much, relatively speaking, at least, so much freedom within the United States that the United States from its beginning is far less dependent and reliance

on trade than the British Islands. Off Britain is an island, a small island at that it's not Australia, you know, and it's a small island that's dependent on trading with the rest of the world. So the comparative advantage division of labor specialization even more important in England, in Britain, Great Britain than in a big country like the United States. Now the US free trade or really the issue of tariffs, it's very much wound up in the US with the

idea of taxation, particularly at the founding. I mean, there were a lot of voices pre founding for free trade. Uh and in deep part of the rejection of British control and the British monarchy was the rejection of the British.

Speaker 2

Control over trade with the American colony.

Speaker 1

They the Americans didn't see why British was intervening in their ability to trade with whoever they wanted to trade. So from the beginning, you know, the United States is set on a path towards free trade. But they encounter the challenge is during the Constitution, they encountered the challenge of how do we raise revenue for this new government? Where does the revenue come from? H And you know,

this is a real problem. They for variety of reasons, they't want to tax income, partially because it's it's difficult to collect, it's difficult to identify income. And I think they're posted it philosophically. It's like you're taxing work. I think they understood well enough that when you tax something, you get less of it. And this was a country that where work was admired and respected, and they didn't they didn't want to tax it. They could have imposed

a sales tax on consumption. But how do you collect the sales tax. It's very difficult to collect the sales tax because you now have to be present in a sense and every transaction there cause they're no real accounting systems, sophisticated accounting systems. It's on computerized obviously. How does the government keep track of what's being bought and what's being sold. It would take too much of an administrative headache to

impose something like that. Now, tariffs, input taxes, which is what a tariff is an import tax, is relatively simple. There are only so many ports or places of entry into the country. You put a customer's office in every one of those places, and you charge a uniform tariff on the goods coming in, and yeah, it reduces it reduces sales of those goods, but that's not a tragedy, and you gain revenue. And in those days government was so small, so small, two and a half percent max

three and a half percent of GDP. That they could raise a big chunk of the revenue from tariffs. The rest were excise taxes, like on alcohol and particular goods, where again you could control, you know, what was happening at the points of engagement, at the points of trade. You didn't have to create a massive bureaucracy to regulate every piece of everything that traded, everything that change stands. So the idea at the Constitution, at the writing of

the Constitution was that they would use tariffs. They would use tariffs in order to raise revenue. It was an indirect revenue, but it was relatively easy to collect, and in April April ninth, seventeen eighty nine.

Speaker 2

Madison actually introduced the first law.

Speaker 1

To impose tariffs fairly low rate, low rate, because you don't want to hoot, you know, trade too much. They understood, they had read Amsmith, they understood some of the principles involved. They didn't have a deep understanding of economics, but they understood that free trade was a good thing, and they wanted to resist intervening too much in trade.

Speaker 2

Now, this is not true of Hamilton. Hamilton very much.

Speaker 1

Thought that America should be self sufficient that America should limit imports, particularly limited imports early in the Republic, so that they could build up an industry free of competition from imports. So Hamilton was definitely a protectionist, and he also proposed differentiated tariffs are different tariffs on different goods based on the industries that he believed needed to be protected. So Hamilton viewed tariffs as ways to protect industries. Madison

viewed tariffs as a way to raise revenue. Both believed in low tariffs, by the way, so Madison Hamilton did not are you for very high taists. They both believed in low tws. But one of the things that shock Madison when he introduced the law is the extent to

which this became a part of an issue. This became splitting political alignment within America and the degree to which people started to advocate for tariffs not as the source of revenue, but as a way to manipulate the economy, as a way to protect industries, as a way to benefit some and who it's others. So this is really the beginning of what will become the you know, probably a very contentious issue within American politics during the nineteenth century.

Speaker 2

I'm actually going to be give give a talk on this, give a talk on on on.

Speaker 1

UH tariffs and the politics of tariffs and what exactly happened, much more detailed than what I'm doing now. I'm just giving you kind of an outline. Today. I'm going to give a talk on this at a at the Florida Objective's Conference. They're doing another one next year. This will be the last weekend in January. I think it's January, like thirty first, February first, something like that. I'll be giving a talk on this in more detail and you know,

different slightly different material. So yeah, if anybody is interested, you should come to Florida. Last year was a lot of fun. It was.

Speaker 2

It was it's a it's a very uh you know, it's a fun confidence.

Speaker 1

You get to see a lot of objectives come, mostly Floridians, but some people flew in from out of the out of states, from Texas, from northeast and came, and so it was great, great time to meet people and to hang out and good talks, a lot of good speakers, and yeah, it was even though I was sick part of it last time. Hope not to be sick this time. It's still was a lot of fun, so encourage you to come. And this will be kind of the topic

that I talk about. So I'll just say during the nineteenth century, there was a constant battle between using very low tariffs to raise revenue for the federal government and to fund the federal government, and between those who wanted to use tariffs in order to protect the industries and in order to stop importation. That is, there was definitely a mercantilist attitude in America. They were definitely behind the cove.

They were not at the cutting edge intellectually as the British were on these issues, which is sad because I mean, America was so much on the cutting edge of pretty much everything else, particularly politically and ultimately economically, that this is one issue where they lagged behind the British and they did not really, ever in all American history, really embrace the British system of unilado free trade, of zero tariffs, and of just opening up your market and accepting free trade.

Speaker 2

You know, American this was something that was.

Speaker 1

Debated heavily in the US, but it became you know, probably the first issue over which you got the development of pressure groups. We'll talk about that and I'll go through the pressure groups in my talk in Florida. You got the development of pressure groups, and it's the first issue where it was real contentious between them and the politics swaye a post Civil war, the political party that became the pro tariff political party aggressively so was the

Republican Party. The Republican Party was very much a pro tariff political party. The Democrats were the pro free trade political party. And indeed the Democrats in many respects during the late nineteenth century, in particular where the pro freedom political party po economic freedom political party that other problems, but on economics, Democrats are much better than Republicans. I think the best president of this period is is Grover Cleveland, who has two terms. He has a first term, he

loses in the second term. And he is own f vetoying a bunch of bills coming out of Congress, vetoying goum and spending, rejecting regulations, rejecting an income tax, you know, rejecting the growth of the state, and rejecting the growth of the state intervention into the economy. He is an advocate of low tariffs. He is an opponent, a political opponent. McKinley who Donald Trump praises all the time because of the McKinley tariffs. McKinley tafts were passed when McKinley was

not president. McKinley was actually Chairman of the House of Means else something it means, what's something? It means? Anyway, he was in the House of Representative House Ways and Means Committee, Ways and Means Committee, and he passed the tariffs, which a huge increase in tariffs in eighteen ninety. Same year, by the way, we got the Anti Trust bill. And during the talk in Florida, I'll tell you about the relationship between tariffs and anti trust. Why were they both

passed at the same time. What's the relationship? And again the politics are super interesting, super interesting. It was a third thing that happened during that same time, which was the negation of There was a big push by populists to make silver a part of the silver money in the United States, which would inflated the economy significantly, raised prices, would have increased the amount of money in the economy because it wouldn't just be gold, it would be silver

as well. And there was a reinformation in eighteen ninety that no the United States would stay on an exclusively gold standard, which it had been, which had been on since the Great Depression, so or since after the Great Depression eighteen seventy four, I think Great Depression. Would the

Great Depression come from? I don't know, since the Civil War, but it was after the Wars eighteen seventy four when the United States went back on the gold stand and stayed on the gold stand until nominally until eighteen thirty three, nineteen thirty three. God, I miss speaking, So you know, panic on, no panic. Grover Cleveland was probably the best, one of the best president maybe economically the best president in American history. So, and he was a Democrat, you know.

So throughout the nineteenth century, the United States had pretty high tariffs. They raised them and then they'd lower them, and then they'd raise them, and then they'd lower them because once they raised them there would be negative consequences, and the intellectual argument against them was was really strong. So it was always you know, there was a period, there was a period in which they passed tariffs in eighteen twenty four, called the Tariffs of Abomination because they

were so hated over sixty percent. It actually led to constitutional crisis, and they were lowered, and then they were raised again in eighteen forty two, and then they were lowered in eighteen forty six, so about the same time as that corn acts are appealed, and you actually had fifteen years of relative free trade until after the Civil War you get tariffs again, and then even higher tariffs

with the McKinley tariffs of it eighteen ninety. And then once McKinley becomes president, he doesn't like the tariffs he put in place, and he starts lowering tariffs. He starts cutting deals with other countries, and so tariffs are lowered, although they stay fairly high until nineteen thirteen, and then you know, around the First World War, they are lowered. In particular, they're lowered because what happens in nineteen thirteen, Well,

in nineteen thirteen income tax. The Constitution is amended to allow an income tax. And when an income tax provides is revenue. And now the revenue excuse justification for tariffs is gone. You can fund the government with income tax. By the way, do you guys know how hi the income text was when it was first passed. So in nineteen thirteen, the first income tax law passes.

Speaker 2

And it is seven percent, seven percent.

Speaker 1

But the only people who pay seven percent, the only people who pay taxes income taxes, are people making over five hundred thousand dollars a year, which in today's money is thirteen million dollars. So think about that. Only people making over thirteen million dollars are taxed, a tiny fraction of the population, and they were only taxed at seven percent, And indeed, is part of passing this income tax law.

Politicians keep telling people, Oh, no, it's it's it's we're not going to increase it beyond this.

Speaker 2

This is as high as it's going to go.

Speaker 1

We don't need that much revenue, and don't worry, most people will never be taxed within five years. Nineteen eighteen, the US has entered World War One. The top right is seventy seven percent, and pretty much everybody in the country is paying outcome Texas more people paid in come text back then than pay today. And again top rate is seventy seven percent. It's lowered after the war after eighteen nineteen to fifth, but it's still over fifty percent.

So so much for the promises of politicians. Right just to remind you to use the super chat to ask questions, you can ask questions about anything, but anything I'll just a complete list. I'll just say, you know, in nineteen twenty two, high tariffs were reinstituted. I mean, there are two things in which Calvin co who's often cited as one of people's favorite presidents, two things that coplic Coolige did that very anti freedom and very bad and you know,

taint his reputation as a free marketer. One was reinstating high tariffs in nineteen twenty two with the idea of stimulating the economy, which was pretty stupid. Now, the economy was strong, but that was in spite of taris. The same thing happened in the late nineteenth century. Economy was strong in spite of the tariffs. Study after study after study shows that it wasn't the industries protected by tarifs that did well. It was other industries they.

Speaker 2

Weren't protected by taos they did the best.

Speaker 1

And the second thing he did was, of course, signed the nineteen twenty four anti immigration law, which basically stopped immigration for much of Europe and much of the world. And it's just devastating for the US. It was devastating for potential immigrants who could have fled Europe before World War Two and got stuck in Europe. Jewish immigration plummeted, Eastern European immigration plummeted. And those are two the cooliages

did that are not market friendly, freedom friendly. And then, of course, in nineteen thirty smooth Holly under the Who administration. Note that both Coolidge and Hoover Republicans under the Hoover administration raised House significantly, and while they didn't cause the

Great Depression, clearly made the Great Depression worse. Clearly contributed because they launched the trade war, which had not just the United States but many other countries and made the Great Depression globally much worse phenomena than it needed to be. One of the interesting facts is that smooth Holly has never been repealed. Smooth Holly is still being in place. The way they get around smooth Holly is that in nineteen thirty four, Congress passed something called the Reciprocal Trade

Agreement Act of nineteen thirty four. And what that act did, this is under Democrat and a Secretary of State who was very very pro trade, what they did was they couldn't repeal Smooth Holly. So what instead they did is they made it possible for the executive branch to negotiate reciprocal trade deals with other countries, bilateral trade agreements, and that Congress would fast track their ratification and only require

a simple majority vote for ratifying trade deals. And it placed much more of the responsibility for tariffs on the executive PIMLI with the idea that the executive would then

go and cut deals. The executive, the assumption is, has the perspective of the good for the entire nation, whereas Congress is rife with fighting between different pressure groups who want different tariffs on different industries in different places, different times, and therefore never actually work towards freedom, whereas the president could. Now that's backfired on us a little bit with Trump,

but that was the intention. So the lowering of tariffs since nineteen thirty four, really until nineteen six, twenty sixteen with Donald Trump, the lowering of tariff has all happened in a reciprocal trade, you know, whether it's by lateral or multilateral deals that then Congress approves, and you got that through GATS and through the Trade Organization, all facilitating

this reduction. Uh, this reduction in tariffs again until Trump, so smooth holly technically still on the books, and it's just the rates that have changed visa very particular countries in particular trade agreements. All right. Uh, So that's a quick history of kind of trade tariffs of the United States and Britain. Uh and uh.

Speaker 2

The bottom line is that the United States has never really had until.

Speaker 1

Never really had. To put it this way, the States has never really had a free trade regime. It's never had it's and it's never been committed to real free trade and whatever commitment it's you know, the commitment of free trade historically has been that of the Democratic Party, particularly in the post Civil War era, and it has been that of but even in the pre Civil War actually and and has been.

Speaker 2

You know, bipartisan in the post World War two era, but it's.

Speaker 1

Never manifested itself in actually lowering tariffs to zero and eliminating trade barriers.

Speaker 2

We have tons of trade barriers today, and we have tariffs.

Speaker 1

They're very low by historical standards, very low again until Trump.

Speaker 2

And it was a bipartisan.

Speaker 1

Commitment after World War Two to lower them as far as far as you could. But United States has never been at the forefront of real free trade, which is sad, you know, except again after World War Two, and even then it was more.

Speaker 2

Managed trade than really free trade.

Speaker 1

The one great era of free trade was in Britain from eighteen forty six to nineteen thirteen, and it was and you got free trade in Hong Kong and Singapore. To this day, particularly Singapore, you've got no trade barriers and no tariffs. So wherever to be tried, it is a huge success. But the reality is that tariffs, particularly in America, don't play a big enough trade doesn't play international trade, doesn't play.

Speaker 2

Big enough role in the economy to actually.

Speaker 1

To actually stop real you know success, domestic success, given all the other factors that go into economic growth.

Speaker 2

So the United States who significantly in the nineteenth century.

Speaker 1

In spite of tariffs. The United States grew, you know, significantly after World War Two in spite of tariffs because of other factors, because of the size of the United States and because of the resources of the United States. Has But tafts have been understood intellectually from an economics perspective, not political perspective. Economic perspective, tas have been understood clearly to be bad economically, bad economics since the time of

Adam Smith. Really no real economists is questioned the free trade idea, and the idea including unilateral free trade, unilateral zero tariffs, which is what Britain implemented. That idea has not really been challenged by economists at all. All right, Yeah, I mean, just imagine how rich a we would be.

Imagine how richer we would be if we didn't have tais during the nineteenth century, or at least if we didn't have tais beyond the minimal tasks required for revenue, and if we'd embraced free trade in the post World War two period completely unilaterally, unequivocally. I mean, there were a lot of things like that. Imagine if we didn't have regulations, right, I mean, there was already business regulation

in nineteenth century. There was a lot of business regulation during the twentieth century post World War Two, and we became the number one economy in spite of all of that too. So does that mean the regulations are Okay? We had horrible tax regimes like income of text to seventy seven percent and the year's economy still grew. Does that mean that those taxi teams didn't hurt the year's economy growing? You have to be able to control those for those factors and realize that even a little bit

of freedom goes a long way. You can see that in China. China got a little bit of freedom, a little bit of economic freedom in the post nineteen seventy eight period and it grew a lot that I mean once one should view that as well. Imagine how much more they would have grown if they had complete freedom. And I think that's true of the United States in spades even more so. All right, we're approaching the end

of the first hour. I'll remind you that we have goals for these shows because you guys fund the run book show. It couldn't exist without support from you. So we have a goal of two hundred and fifty an hour, and we're about halfway there. So I encourage you, uh for for the first hour and we're going into the second hours. I encourage you to step in and participate and support the show and support what I am doing, what all of us are doing. Uh So, please consider

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And that is probably the best way to.

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I mean, yeah, it's an amazing, amazing, amazing that we have the ability. You know, again, I remember when I first discovered Iran, there was nothing, I mean, and the books were out, but I was living in Israel.

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It's amazing. Now what's just accessible at your fingertips. Let's see, you don't eat spices when you eat beef, yes, you do. Beef is so much more delicious when it's got like some good spices on it. When you get a really good chef who can who knows how to treat the beef and put the right spices on it, it is pretty It is pretty amazing how much better the beef becomes. So yeah, I mean, you don't know what good food is if you think just a plain slab of meat

is good enough. Yeah, it's good enough, but it's also boring and bland as compared to what it could be, what it could be, So yeah, go find a good chef who really knows how to cook a steak and knows what to put on it, knows what spices and stuff to put on it. And anyway, making something spicy is always going to improve the flavor no matter what the food is. And what the spices do is they bring out the flavor of the beef so much better. And certainly a steak needs salt, a little bit of salt.

But you know, you can have a steak with coffee rub it is so good. And what it does is a lot of times by coating it with certain spices you get the juices captured. It captures the juice is much better and it just adds fantastic to the flavor of the beef.

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character well, and I trust him completely. So yes, check it out hand ashot, wealth dot com, slash ybs, and check out the video with me talking to Robert Handershot on my YouTube channels. It's under the sponsors playlist, so you'll find it there. All right, Let's see what else did I want to say? Yeah, I wanted to thank Barry fifty dollars stick. I thank you Barry, really appreciate it. They got us closer to the one hour goal, but we still still need some work there. Guys, John, thank

you for the sticker. Really appreciate it. DF thank you for the sticker. Nature Observer, thank you. Let's see who else? I think I saw Jonathan honing you always is Day. Yeah, there's Jonathan and Donna. Thank you guys, Thanks everybody for the sticker, for the support. I appreciate it. All of you will watching right now, whether you're on if you're on Twitter, coming over to YouTube. You can support your show on YouTube or go to Patreons support the show there.

And if you're watching right now, just do a stick at two dollars ninety nine cents.

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If everybody right now just did a couple of bucks, we'd be in great shape.

Speaker 1

We'd be in great shape. So consider doing something before the end of the show. We don't have a lot of questions. We have a few, don't have a lot of questions to the show might be showed today. You get to term of the length of the show. You get to determine the content of the show because you ask questions and I answer all right now, do you have a y AGORITHM The greatest prison people live in is the fear of what other people think. Yeah. Absolutely,

I mean it is a form of a prison. It's a form of a cognitive psychological prison, and it makes it very difficult for people to take risks and to express themselves and to really manifest themselves. Yeah, it's sad that people care as much as they do about what other people think of them and think of their ideas. Andrew, you gave a great answer on motivation by love yesterday. Many do achieve material success or prestige based on negative motivation.

But to objectivism, moral success is happiness, and for that one needs motivation by love. Yeah. Absolutely. And look, I think if you watch successful individuals in any field, you can differentiate the ones that were motivated by fear and the ones that were motivated by love, by just their attitude, how how much joy they get out of what they do. I mean, take somebody like Steve Jobs and comparing to other you know, others who are being successful, and he exuded a.

Speaker 2

Sense of joy and a sense of pride and a sense of achievement.

Speaker 1

And it comes from the fact that you knew that the products of Steve Jobs developed and put out there were based on his values that were based on what he loved to do, that this was something he cherished, he loved, he embraced. He was completely motivated by love. And you could tell. And I think a lot of the billion is, to their credit, people who are motivated

by love. They work unbelievably hard. They you know, and they and they love the products that they build, and they and they love the businesses that they build, and it's it's it's a positive motivation.

Speaker 2

And most of them, look, most of them do not have you know, most of them are a middle class.

Speaker 1

They maybe didn't have hard childhood, so it wasn't like they had something to fear. And if you look at Bill Gates and look at Jeff Bezos, and you look at these guys, there's not a sense of what drives them is fear. You really do get a sense of what drives them is values ultimately love. It's part of what I admire about about them. Thought criminal ten British pounds stoling. Thank you. I really appreciate the support. And

of course the pounds. Sterling was the global currency, global money, the reserve currency of the world in the pre World War One era. That of course shifted to the dollars. By the end of World War Two, the dollar was a reserve currency of the world. James, If Trump actually loses his mind and orders those nuclear submarines to launch, what does generals and people around Trump stop him? Could humanity end over the whims of a narcissistic manchild with

too much power? Yeah, it could, you know. I don't know who would stop him. I assume they would, because as crazy as jd Vance and some of the others Hegseth and some of the others are around Trump, I don't think that that crazy, and I think somebody would try to stop him and would make a real effort. But my real wary is that this is the beginning of a slippy slope of fatat of soda rattling that might not lead to warn the short run, but it just create an environment of war that is very very

dangerous and very very difficult to get out of. Now, there are ways to deal with Russia. I've articulated. Some of them do not involve a nuclear threat. All you have to do is I'd shut down the embassy in Russia, I bring my in bess at home. I would, you know, massively arm the Ukrainians, and I would tell Russia that you know for now the United States is completely committed to Article five of NATO and will participate if he invades a NATO country. And that's it. That's all you

have to do. We don't have to play tit for tat on Twitter. You don't have to comment on anyvy stupid thing, Madvedev says. Just cut off diplomatic relations, reconfirm your dedication to Article five of NATO, and armed the Ukrainians the teeth. And just if you arm the Ukrainians to the teeth, you'll achieve much of what you need to achieve. There's no point in this again, saber rattling. Oh you want to talk about war, I'll show you war.

Very dangerous, very dangerous, Andrew. Some resent the optionality of trade. The Brital self esteem can handle and know they want to force values on others, but trade and force the opposites. The antagonism to trade is a sign of fertility and fear. I think that's right, but it's more than that. They also want They're afraid of trade, they're afraid of competition, they're afraid of the other, and they really do view

the world as zero sum. So if the other side is gaining by getting our dollars, we might be losing.

Speaker 2

This is Trump's view, and that induces fear.

Speaker 1

Right, It's all based on fear and induced by fear, and a lot of it is driven, indeed by a zero sum mentality, which I think is broader than just trade, a zero some mentality.

Speaker 2

The mentality of everything in life is win a lose, and and.

Speaker 1

Other people are threat to me because other people, if they win, then I lose. And so the only way I can get ahead is by winning, which is exploiting other people causing them to lose.

Speaker 2

And it just creates a horrible environment in which to live.

Speaker 1

And I think at the root of a life, a lot of this stuff on trade and fear of competition and fear of the other is a zero some mentality, a zero some mentality, and it's very hard to get rid of that kind of mentality because it's so psychological embedded in them. And of course the galaxyianism supports that, Egalitarianism encourages that. So the left is very much encouraging and supporting of a zero sum view. What's sad is

to see the extent of which it's universal now. The right is embraced it just as much as the left, even detached from the galiarianism the left. All right, let me just remind you again, value for value. You're listening to show. We've got almost one hundred people listening and one hundred and sixty people on Twitter, and you get the show. Where's the trade? We're talking about trade. Where's

the win win trade? So the one way to exert a win win trade is to come onto the super chat and make a small contribution, ask a question or just do a sticker with a contribution, and you can do that for on your phone. You can do that on the computer. It's pretty easy to do. Just press that dollar sign underneath it and you can get it all rolling. Of course, if you don't want to get involved here, you can go to Patreon, or you can

go to a PayPal. Patreon I think is easy for easier for everybody, and you can set up a monthly contribution for the one book show show funded completely by you. Guys, doesn't exist without you, and of course you gain value from it. Value for value trade, that's what it's all about, all right. Dan says, Ran might have not given us the answer with objectivism. But today it is clear, however,

how evil altruism is. And she was spot on, and well, I happen to think that grand did give us an answer with objectivism to pretty much most of our burning questions, most of the big issues in philosophy. Iron ran as sould with objectivism. And it's not surprising at all that you can now recognize the evil of altruism. She couldn't have. I mean, part of that is because what she built

was a uniform it was a systematic, integrated philosophy. And the fact that she was writing on altruism suggests he's writing on other things egoism, for example, capitalism, reason as man's basic means of survival. All of that is implied by her being right on altruism. So I think, I think you need to think rethink your view of rand there. Whops, what am I doing? All right? Liam? From what legal experts of you have told me, it is likely the Supreme Court throws these teriffs out.

Speaker 2

I think there's a good chance that that indeed happens. I mean, it does look like the I.

Speaker 1

Mean again, the Court of the Court of International Trade has already thrown them out. The Pellet Court that heard arguments on Thursday seem pretty skeptical of the mart of the government's arguments. They might throw it out, and I think the Supreme Court will do the same thing. I

think what Trump is doing is a real reach. And given that this court is concerned about division of power, concerned about, for example, regulatory agencies doing things that are not in the law, and therefore have done away with Chevron and may basically change the way we view regulations, it would be in consistent of the Court not to say things about the same thing about the executive You know, basically, the law Trump is using does not give him the authority.

Speaker 2

To use tariffs, even.

Speaker 1

If he believes there's any economic emergency, and that the Constitution is quite clear that tariffs are the purview of Congress. So yes, I think there's a really good chance.

Speaker 2

It's going to take some time. It's just going to take some time.

Speaker 1

Liam says, if interstates come down and the tariffs are abolished and AI innovation accelerates, could we have another decade like the nineties. Yeah, easily, easily even I mean, depending on how big of a DLAI is, maybe even better than the nineties, But absolutely you abolish the tariffs, maybe they abolished by by the now. Note the Beame Court will only abolish the tariffs that are that are that are being put in place using that one particular law.

The tariffs that are put in place based on national security, for example, will not be covered under that lawsuit. So steel tariffs, aluminum tabs, car tariffs, a bunch of other taps will not be covered. But these reciprocal tabs, those are the ones be thrown out. But if that is abolished, and if interest rates I think will come down. Yeah, even if interstates don't come down, I think just tariff going away, an AI innovation accelerating. You got a golden

era in front of you. Frank, what is free trade zone? Some tell me it's being able to pollute the air, dump in the water, making.

Speaker 2

Off of products, no building codes. What's true?

Speaker 1

I mean, I guess it depends on the exact regulation in the exact place where the free trade zone exists. But free trade zones are basically areas in which companies can produce and they everything they import is not tariffed. So it's an area in which you can bring in raw materials and other things and not had a tariff. Now, there's no guarantee that when you sell it other countries won't impost tariff on it. But it is a unilateral free trade zone, so anything coming in is tariff free.

And you see that all over the world. You see Manaos in Brazil has a free trade zone. It's a city in the middle of the Amazon. It's almost impossible to get to this city. And they have massive industry there. And that massive industry there because the only place in Brazil that has a free trade zone, so you know, a lot of capital came in and they built auto companies, built manufacturing plants and everything else. And the cars coming out of there really cheap because there are no towers

placed on them. Within Brazil, oh, no tabs were placed on the stuff coming in to make the cars. And it's it's a relatively cheap place to live. It always was because it's no the Amazon, but it's it's very inefficient if you want to if you do trade zone, free trade zone, you want to do it like next to a major port. Now, it's true that in some places because because of the local regulations, there's a lot less pollution regulation and there's a lot less building regulation.

But that's good. We're against regulations. So you get an opportunity to build cheaply, and you build and to provide people with jobs and to create wealth for the local economy and and and uh yeah, and and create industry where there wasn't any industy before. And it's a win win, win, win win for everybody. And yeah, you know, nobody has ever industrialized, any country ever industrialized anywhere in the world without polluting. Pollution is a minor cost of getting rich

through industrialization, and there's no other way to get rich. Frank, do you think that scene in Dirty Dancing when Bully praises the fountain head hurt the objective's movement? Also, was Charles Lawton the best film actor ever? No, I don't think it hurts. I think anytime you get a mention of one of her books in a major media platform, it's a win. Some people are going to be curious, they will go and check it out and and maybe by it, and that's a win. So few publicity is

always a win. Is Charles Lawton the best actor ever? Maybe he's definitely one of the greats. You know, I'm not in a position to say he's the greatest of all time. But Charles Lawton certainly is one of the great actors of all time, no question about that. Jeffrey, thank you for the sticker.

Speaker 2

Jeffrey got us close up.

Speaker 1

We still didn't make the goal, so we're like forty six bucks showed. Anyway, we'll out of questions. So unless somebody quickly asked the question, this is it. I'm not sure if we'll do a show tomorrow. It depends how packing goes, how much time I have. But if not, then probably a show on Tuesday. In Tuesday, in afternoon East Coast time. What's the exact time. But I'm getting my office set up on Tuesday in Lisbon and hopefully I'll be able to do a show out of Dare

on Tuesday. So maybe tomorrow. Definitely a show on Tuesday. Have a fantastic weekend. Don't forget a sign up on Patreon to become a supporter of the show, and I will see you all. If not tomorrow, then next week. Bye everybody.

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