Although historians have devoted significant attention to Trump’s efforts to impose a patriotic form of history at all levels of the educational system, they have spent less time examining how Trump has repeatedly used U.S. tariff history to defend his own tariff policies. Yet much can be learned from this application of history to his agenda. Articles published in the popular press have pointed to the egregious factual errors in his accounts of tariff history. But more troubling from a historical perspective is his almost total neglect of changing historical contexts. Inattention to context in turn leads him to misunderstand basic issues of cause and effect. Labor historians should be particularly concerned about Trump’s misuse of tariff history because his tariff policies remain popular with many working-class voters and labor union leaders despite the recent economic meltdown they have caused. Three examples will suffice here.
President Trump’s favorite historical narrative has emphasized the ways in which high tariffs helped Republicans achieve unprecedented levels of national prosperity during the Gilded Age. The primary hero of his narrative is William McKinley who, as a congressman, proposed and helped to pass legislation in 1890 enacting high tariffs and subsequently ran successfully for president on a high tariff platform. Trump has argued repeatedly that “McKinley made our country rich through tariffs.”
Yet there is clearly another side to the story often detailed in the history textbooks Trump so detests. Prosperity during this era was mostly limited to the new Robber Baron class of corporate leaders. Most industrial workers lived in poverty despite working long hours in notoriously unsafe factories, mines, and mills. Children as young as ten were increasingly employed in industry because they were the cheapest labor force and could be easily exploited. These deplorable conditions spawned militant strikes that were defeated only when private detective agencies or state militias violently intervened, as happened during the Homestead Steel Strike of 1892. So high tariffs did not translate to prosperity for industrial communities.[i]
Family farms experienced equally tough conditions, as “bonanza” farmers in the Midwest easily acquired expensive new machinery that allowed them to more efficiently plow larger fields and to dominate agricultural markets. They also gained cheaper rates for shipping their products on the railways. In protest, family farmers launched a left-wing populist movement far different from Trump’s right-wing populism. Populists in the 1890s advocated for nationalization of the rail lines, a more flexible currency, and a publicly run subtreasury system that would provide interest-free credit for farmers during the growing season.[ii]