‘The Biggest Policy Mistake in 95 Years’

Jeremy Siegel, professor at University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, told CNBC that President Trump’s sweeping tariffs could be worse for the U.S. than the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930.

Said Siegel: “I think this is the biggest policy mistake in 95 years. I don’t know why Trump didn’t learn the lesson of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act, because I know the Fed learned the lesson of its mistakes in 1930, ’31 and ’32. That’s one reason why the great financial crisis did not turn into a Great Depression. We flooded the banks with liquidity, which we did not do 95 years ago.”

He added: “This is a self-inflicted wound. It’s an unforced error – did not have to happen.”