Donald Trump Could Become Our Very Own Herbert Hoover

History doesn’t repeat itself, but it sometimes rhymes. Mark Twain probably never said that, but it remains one of the sharpest ways to make sense of the uncanny similarities between past and present.

In 1930, President Herbert Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act into law, raising tariffs to punitive levels in a doomed effort to protect American industry. The result was global retaliation, a collapse in trade, and a world economy that slid deeper into depression.

Now, in 2025, Donald Trump is composing his own verse in that dark rhyme—rolling out sweeping tariffs that could again send the U.S. and global economies into a tailspin.

Trump Meets Herbert Hoover in 2025

Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs—10% across the board on all imports, and much more on Chinese goods—are not tools of serious statecraft. They are weapons of economic self-harm, wielded with all the strategic subtlety of a sledgehammer.

These aren’t narrowly targeted measures designed to strengthen key supply chains or punish unfair trade practices. They’re a reflexive, ideological rejection of the global economic system that the United States spent the better part of a century building.

And if they stick, they could inflict more damage than Smoot-Hawley ever did.

Before these tariffs were even announced, the U.S. economy was already showing signs of strain. Growth was slowing. Investment was weak. Inflation, while no longer running white-hot, remained persistent. Now Trump wants to pile a massive new tax on consumers and producers at the worst possible moment. It’s not just economically reckless—it’s historically ignorant. And as with Hoover’s folly, the costs won’t just be financial. They’ll be geopolitical. They’ll be structural. They’ll be long-lasting.

Trump insists he’s protecting American workers. Hoover said the same thing. But slogans aren’t strategy. And “Buy American” is no substitute for a coherent industrial policy. The truth is, Trump’s tariffs are more likely to raise prices on everyday goods, damage America’s already fragile manufacturing base, and alienate the allies we need most. Canada, Japan, South Korea, and the EU aren’t taking this quietly. They are preparing retaliatory measures.

Meanwhile, China will simply continue doing what it has always done—subsidizing production, manipulating markets, and waiting for Washington to stumble.

Protectonism Is Back

And stumble we have. Trump’s protectionism is not simply misguided. It is a deliberate retreat from the structural reality of the 21st-century global economy. Unlike in Hoover’s day, today’s production networks are transnational. Supply chains are deeply integrated. The idea that the United States can wall itself off with tariffs and somehow engineer an industrial renaissance is pure fantasy. You don’t build semiconductors or electric vehicles without imported components. You don’t run advanced manufacturing without foreign machines, minerals, or capital goods. You certainly don’t decouple from China overnight without enormous costs.

But Trump isn’t interested in nuance. He never has been. He believes tariffs are a show of strength, a way to bludgeon the world into submission. He claims America has been “taken advantage of,” and that only he can fix it. But what he’s really doing is dismantling the remnants of a global system that—however flawed—preserved U.S. strategic primacy for three generations. And he’s doing it not in the name of realism, but in service of a cartoonish economic nationalism that has no answer for automation, no plan for workforce development, and no vision beyond sticking it to the other guy.

Trump likes to say he’s not afraid to break things. But when the thing being broken is the global trading system—still brittle from pandemic shocks and geopolitical tension—someone has to clean up the mess. And there’s no indication he’s willing or able to do that. Like Hoover, he may truly believe he’s acting in the nation’s best interest. But belief is no substitute for understanding. And repetition of failure is not leadership—it’s negligence.

The irony is that there is a strategic case for rethinking trade. The post-Cold War neoliberal model did enormous damage—hollowing out the American middle class, fueling offshoring, and empowering geopolitical rivals like China. But the answer isn’t a tariff war against the world. The answer is a managed retreat from globalization—a shift toward smaller, resilient, strategically aligned trading blocs, paired with real investment in domestic capacity. In short: realism, not rage.

Trump doesn’t get that. And worse, he doesn’t seem to care. He’s playing to an audience, not solving a problem. His tariffs are performance politics—designed to generate headlines and rally a base that’s been fed a steady diet of betrayal narratives and nostalgia for a manufacturing past that no longer exists. But populist theatrics don’t pay the bills. And if this strategy triggers a recession—as many now fear—it will be the very people Trump claims to champion who suffer the most.

The GOP Is Worried

Some in the Republican Party are starting to grow uneasy. Economists across the spectrum warn of rising inflation and slower growth. Business leaders are bracing for higher input costs and retaliatory barriers abroad. And America’s allies—already wary of Trump’s return—are beginning to hedge against the possibility that a second Trump term will mean four more years of economic instability and diplomatic estrangement.

Hoover didn’t cause the Great Depression—but he made it far worse. And while Trump didn’t break the global trading system alone, he seems determined to finish the job. If these tariffs hold, if retaliation spreads, and if recession takes root, there will be no mistaking who to blame. History won’t be kind. Nor should it be.

Trump doesn’t need to be Hoover. He still has time to change course. But if he continues down this path—repeating the same errors, doubling down on the same dogma, and ignoring the same warning signs—he will end up in the same place. And this time, the consequences could be even greater.

Because history may not repeat. But when it rhymes, it often ends in ruin.

About the Author: Dr. Andrew Latham

Andrew Latham is a non-resident fellow at Defense Priorities and a professor of international relations and political theory at Macalester College in Saint Paul, MN.