During remarks on the Senate floor Tuesday, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) spoke about her bill to limit presidential authority over imposing tariffs.
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00:00Mr. President, I thank my colleagues for coming to the floor to remember this horrific shooting in their state
00:07and to remember those and the family ones who were affected by this.
00:12Very much appreciate this resolution.
00:15I come to talk about history as well.
00:18I just visited a group of young students from my state, Vancouver ITEC.
00:25Actually, it's the second time I've seen a group of students from this school in the last week.
00:31A group of them were here last week competing in a national history championship.
00:36And I'm very proud to say that the young women presenting a historical review of the Kaiser shipyards in our state
00:48that changed the workforce, and basically women came to the workforce during World War II,
00:54who placed second in that national championship.
00:57So hats off to those young women for capturing that moment of history and explaining what it was all about.
01:03They also, the competition from Vancouver ITEC preparatory,
01:10had four other individuals who placed in the top ten of the subjects that they were providing.
01:20So I love that my state is focusing on history.
01:23I'm here, too, to focus on some history and a resolution.
01:29Today is the 95th anniversary of one of the worst economic policies our country ever made,
01:37the Smoot-Hawley tariffs.
01:39Don't just take my word for it.
01:41The Senate Historical Office has characterized it as, quote,
01:45among the most catastrophic acts in congressional history, end quote.
01:51So today I'm introducing a resolution that commemorates this anniversary
01:55as a moment to reflect on the devastating impact and the consequences.
02:00It shows you what we can learn from history.
02:03And at its peak, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act placed an average rate of 20 percent tariffs
02:10on goods imported into the United States, just 20 percent.
02:15So we have had this big discussion about many other things, definitely well above 20 percent.
02:21The goal, then, was to bolster U.S. farmers and manufacturers
02:25by protecting them from foreign competition.
02:27But that goal, as we all know, if you study history, was not met.
02:32What it did instead was widen and deepen the Great Depression.
02:38My resolution recounts our major trading partners, including Canada and countries in Europe,
02:44responded to those tariffs placed on by the United States by raising tariffs on the United States exported goods.
02:52So, yes, let's say a trade war.
02:55An anti-United States sentiment rapidly intensified in foreign countries,
03:00leading to a consumer boycott of American products in Canada, France, Spain, Italy, and many other countries.
03:08The retaliatory tariffs and consumer boycotts caused farm and manufacturing exports from the United States
03:15to plunge from 68 percent, basically $5.24 billion, in 1929, to basically $1.6 billion.
03:28So from $5 billion to basically $1 billion in 1933.
03:33So, a big drop in what the United States was able to do.
03:38The U.S. gross domestic product fell nearly in half,
03:42from $104 billion in 1929 to just $57 billion in 1932.
03:49And the unemployment rate, unemployment rate, rose from 3.2 percent to a peak of around 23 percent in 1932.
04:00So the Great Depression had arrived.
04:04In my state, the state of Washington, we've always been dependent on trade.
04:08Back then, lumber was our main export, and the trade war essentially destroyed that industry.
04:14Production dropped 70 percent, and the board feet dropped down to just 2 billion board feet in 1932,
04:23more than cutting in half what we had done before.
04:26More than half of our state's loggers lost their jobs.
04:29The unemployment rate in my state was 33 percent, much higher than the national average.
04:34And where do we stand 95 years later?
04:39Do we want to take a moment and understand the lessons of Smoot-Hawley?
04:46The administration is running a very high tariff playbook.
04:51The world's economy is much more interconnected now than it was in the 1930s.
04:55Uncertainty is the enemy of continued economic growth.
04:59And at least the Smoot-Hawley tariffs were set at an established rate.
05:04American businesses knew what they were standing up against and could make forecasts and plans accordingly.
05:10These tariffs in the Trump administration change at the discretion of the president, creating huge uncertainty.
05:17Small business owners in my state tell me that while the tariffs are a challenge,
05:21the uncertainty is what keeps them up at night.
05:24The administration's tariffs are on par with Smoot-Hawley-era tariffs.
05:30That, the economic historians agree, that was a prolonged and deepened global depression.
05:39Last week, the president said the tariffs on China would be set at 55 percent.
05:45So what have we learned from this historical date?
05:48Before President Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Act, he got a signed letter from more than 1,000 economists.
05:561,000 economists sent a letter.
05:59The economists warned that raising tariffs would cause the cost to rise on consumers,
06:07farmers and manufacturers would suffer, and retaliatory tariffs would make exports dry up.
06:13And they said that starting a trade war would damage our foreign relations.
06:20As early as 1934, Congress tried to right the ship.
06:25That year, we passed the Reciprocal Tariff Act, directing presidents to reduce U.S. and world tariff rates.
06:31This year, my colleagues, Senator Grassley, and I are trying to stop the administration
06:36by introducing the Trade Review Act of 2025 that establishes limits on the president's ability to impose tariffs.
06:44Why? Because this is the constitutional power given to Congress, not to the president.
06:49The courts have already said at certain levels that this president, as it relates to the Economic Powers Act,
06:57does not have this authority.
06:58So, out of the ashes of World War II, the U.S. led in a way of creating an open and rules-based international trading system.
07:09Tariffs were lowered in the U.S. and abroad.
07:13And falling in, the U.S. made a case for a trade-weighted average of 20 percent in 1933 to 7 percent in 1950
07:23and continuing to fall afterward with trade agreements.
07:25So, it means we established rules.
07:30That is what trade needs.
07:32We don't need a president whose authority isn't in this particular area to start trade wars with no end in sight.
07:41The rules-based trading system provided the stability we needed to drive investment and to drive growth.
07:46So, the resolution I'm introducing today asks the Senate to affirm the importance of a rules-based trade policy
07:53that reduces production costs for American farmers, for manufacturers, and one that opens markets to U.S. exports.
08:01It is time for us to commit to encouraging trade policies, particularly when so many other countries are getting their products on the shelves in foreign markets,
08:14leaving our products at home.
08:16Let's avoid the repetition of this historical policy mistake and instead do something that reaffirms this institution's oversight of this issue
08:28and recognize the problems that tariffs are causing.
08:32I thank the president and I yield the floor.