The sweeping tariff increases of the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Act, widely seen as exacerbating the Great Depression, were soon revisited after a change of government but still “took decades to unwind”, Irwin noted.

President Donald Trump announced the largest increase in tariffs in U.S. history on April 2, unveiling new import duties that he said would revive domestic manufacturing and amount to a national “Declaration of Economic Independence.

President Donald Trump's sweeping new tariffs could raise the price of Bibles. China, one of the countries hit with higher tariffs by the Trump administration this week, is the wo