This all seems like the runup to the great depression :/
http://americastradepolicy.com/did-the-smoot-hawley-tariff-c...
> The economists argued that the tariff increases would raise the cost of living, limit our exports as other countries retaliated, injure U.S. investors since the high tariffs would make it harder for foreign debtors to repay their loans, and damage our foreign relations. Unfortunately, this is what happened.
> From 1929 to 1933 American exports declined from about $5.2 billion to $1.7 billion, and the impact was concentrated on agricultural products such as wheat, cotton and tobacco. As a result, many American farmers defaulted on their loans, which in turn particularly affected small rural banks.
Though I would argue that Smoot-Hawley was a mere symptom of a new-found desire of national governments to meddle in the economy in such a way that it couldn't recover from the inflationary crash brought on by the Roaring '20s. Wage controls, price controls, production quotas, tariffs, &etc...
Its interesting because I always thought the cause was central banks wanting to peg the dollar to gold, this is what I had gathered from reading Lord of Finances year ago. Perhaps I need to reread it?