Turns out all you needed to know about the Trump administration's trade policies, you could have learned from that iconic classroom scene from the 1980s classic film Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Remember the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act? Anyone? Anyone?
This week some of the best known and respected economists in the U.S. used that very example to warn the president against tariffs, trade wars and protectionist policies. History may not repeat, but as they say, it often rhymes.
In the lead-up to this week's meeting between the U.S. and China, 1,100 economists signed a letter of warning to the U.S. president. The U.S. has proposed tariffs on up to $150 billion of Chinese imports. China has responded with tariffs of its own.
"My message to the president is he better be very careful," said Robert Engle, a Nobel-winning economist and professor at NYU. "We've had 88 years of reductions in tariffs and to suddenly increase them again against our allies and trade representatives, it seems like madness"
The letter quotes entire passages of another, similar warning penned by economists 88 years ago. Back then, the economists were worried about the Smoot-Hawley Act. The act has gone on to become a token for bad policy and also carved itself into pop culture history...
This has been excerpted from the 4 May 2018 edition of CBC News.