But that was before fiat currencies. Now you just print so much money that everyone can afford to pay the tariffs. No big deal. Maybe it IS a big deal because the tariffs are bigger than the tax cut/spending increases. But I'm just saying...the government couldn't just hand out checks to everybody during Smoot-Hawley. Now they can. Also, the trade deficit has actually increased since the tariffs were enacted, which implies that they aren't impoverishing people enough to keep them from buying imports. So we'll see. Maybe the 25% hitting in January will finally tank the economy. I'm just not sure they won't spend themselves out of this dilemma like they have all the other times.