The claim that the Smoot-Hawley Act “caused” the Great Depression is oversimplified and more commonly found in political rhetoric or popular discourse of the Democrats, who used it as a campaign argument to blame Republicans when it was a response to the high tariffs first imposed by Europe. Academic consensus recognizes it as one of many factors (alongside stock market collapse, banking crises, and monetary policy) that deepened and prolonged the crisis. No major economist or historian has definitively claimed it was the sole cause.
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