Search Results: forget me just like that

"Now, that message of free trade is one I conveyed to Canada's leaders a few weeks ago, and it was warmly received there. Indeed, throughout the world there's a growing realization that the way to prosperity for all nations is rejecting protectionist legislation and promoting fair and free competition... And today many economic analysts and historians argue that high tariff legislation passed back in that period, called the Smoot-Hawley tariff, greatly deepened the depression and prevented economic recovery.

You see, at first, when someone says, ``Let's impose tariffs on foreign imports,'' it looks like they're doing the patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs. And sometimes for a short while it works -- but only for a short time. What eventually occurs is:

First, homegrown industries start relying on government protection in the form of high tariffs. They stop competing and stop making the innovative management and technological changes they need to succeed in world markets.

And then, while all this is going on, something even worse occurs. High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars.

The result is more and more tariffs, higher and higher trade barriers, and less and less competition. So, soon, because of the prices made artificially high by tariffs that subsidize inefficiency and poor management, people stop buying.

Then the worst happens: Markets shrink and collapse; businesses and industries shut down; and millions of people lose their jobs.

There are those in this Congress, just as there were back in the thirties, who want to go for the quick political advantage, who will risk America's prosperity for the sake of a short-term appeal to some special interest group, who forget that millions of American jobs are directly tied to the foreign export business and additional millions are tied to imports. Well, I've never forgotten those jobs."