During its passage through Congress the trade bill which became notorious as the Smoot–Hawley tariff was festooned with a variety of demands, including significant protection against European manufactured imports. By the autumn of 1929 the Europeans knew that not only would Congress not permit any substantial reduction in the inter-Allied debt payments, and not only was there little prospect of any new long-term credit from America, but that the new tariff would in all likelihood make it harder for America’s European debtors to earn the dollars they needed to service their obligations to Wall
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