President trump past leaders let china take the crown jewels of american industry. Now, we are finally responding to years of chronic trade abuses by defending our workers with tariffs, and anything else that is necessary. Because nobody is going to steal our businesses, nobody will close our factories, and nobody will close our plants anymore. They are all coming back. [applause] susan President Trump has popularized the debate over tariffs in our country once again. But how long throughout our history have tariffs been a subject of political debate . Peter tariffs have been the topic of discussion from the beginning. Tariffs make great rhetoric. Really power people up. One could argue that the United States was founded on a tariff battle. Not american tariffs, but opposition to english tariffs. Susan we will spend some time we started asking questions about the tariff debate and we thought we would bring the audience along to learn more about the role of tariffs and American History. Before we get into the meat of this, what is a tariff . Peter at its base level it is a tax. There are many different kinds of tariffs. You will hear about protectionist tariffs, punitive tariffs. But at the end of the day, the difference between those tariffs is minimal. It depends on if you are paying the tariff, or paying for the tariffs. The most basic level is there are two ways that tariffs are adjudicated. One is that it is the percentage of the cost of the item being imported. The other is a fixed cost. When the United States was first founded, most of the tariffs were 5 of the value of an object coming in. There were some things that were specific. It was i think . 10 on a gallon of wine. They did not make a difference if it was good wine or bad wine, it was . 10 a gallon. Susan overall, with regard to tariffs, are there winners and losers as segments of society when they are imposed . Peter tariffs are fascinating in that they are very mysterious. Really, i think i like analogies. Thinking about tariffs is thinking about a big plate of spaghetti. And Everybody Loves spaghetti. Tariffs are very complicated and difficult to understand. Its almost impossible to pull a strand of spaghetti out of the plate without touching the others. Depending on your perspective, different people have remarkably different ideas about whether they are effective or not effective. People argue about that forever. They are taxes. It is very unclear. One thing that is absolutely clear about tariffs is the rhetoric about tariffs is extremely successful. This is something that politicians throughout the history of this country have used very effectively to get elected. Being in favor of or being opposed to tariffs. Susan before we get into the founding of the nation and the tariff battles at the earliest days, i want to learn more about you. So you spent much of your career at the American History museum, what is your job there . Peter i am a curator. I take care that a variety of of a variety of different collections. I am the project director for the American Enterprise exhibition, which is the exhibit that looks at the history of the nation, of the people through the story of business and working people. Susan at this network we talk to academic historians, you are a public historian. What is your mission . Peter my job as a public historian is to get people excited about history, get people excited about thinking and learning. And the mission is not so much to tell people what is right or wrong, or specific dates, but to make them understand that any topic is complicated and involved. And tariffs are probably the perfect example of this. No one understands tariffs. Even the people involved will occasionally own up to the fact that they are very hard to decipher. For the public, whats really important is to know that tariffs have huge effects, and its very unclear what those effects will be. So unintended consequences really are associated with tariffs quite often. Susan since the Trump Administration has brought tariffs back to the forefront, have you changed the way you talk about them in your exhibition . Peter no. The smithsonian is apolitical. Its important for us to represent all sides of the argument. We are excited that people are interested in tariffs, because it is a business story, and it makes people lean in more. But we really are not influenced by any one groups interest for or against something. Susan but if people are generally more interested in the topic, you make it easier to find . Peter as topics change, different portions of exhibition become more engaging. If you go down and listen to peoples conversations, they are sometimes more heated than they were in the past. Susan we have a few of the items and you can explain how they tell the story of tariffs. But how did you get started in all this . Peter in terms of Business History . Susan yeah, and your interest in doing this for a profession. Peter for me, if you are interested in technology, i am a historian of technology, the aspect of it that touches people, how their lives are changed by technological innovation is important. The role of business in that story is complicated. For me, as a historian, that complication is really delightful. Understanding history is very gray. Maybe a conspiracy is actually true, that people have alternative motives, they will do one thing and Say Something else. It is a great learning experience that you can apply to the future. Susan what sparked your initial interest in taking this direction in your history studies . Peter well, i have always done Industrial History. I am a big fan of big, heavy greasy things. Being able to do Industrial History really requires you to look at business, to think about it, who the people are and how labor is being formed. Giving agency to all the participants. Economists are great people. They write wonderful books that are filled with great numbers that are often correct. But, for a historian, understanding the anecdotal part. Why at the wto, why the protest in 1990 in seattle, why they were marching in turtle suits . It is just a fascinating time. Susan you made the point that the nation was born over tariffs. So what is your point there . Peter the United States, trade is what is really important. Tariffs are a huge element of trade because they have become a bar to importing, and occasionally exporting more. The United States, as a set of largely british colonies, was interested in trade. It existed in a mercantile system. So the british were saying you must send all this back to the mother country, we will turn it into finished goods and then you can buy it back at a higher price. And people wanted to trade, they wanted to do the value added. They wanted to trade not only with england, but be able to trade with germany, with australia, with china. We have a big section and our exhibition that looks at the china trade in the 1840s. And there were a series of tariffs that were put on to citizens of the u. S. , the stamp act would be one example. That you had to pay a tax for any type of document. Ea had a huge bounty that was put on it. Susan which led to the Boston Tea Party . Peter correct. Americans were unhappy about having to pay for that extra tax that was put on their tea. And sometimes they sent it back to england. Sometimes they locked it up in warehouses. In the case of boston, you know, a violent act, they destroyed the tea and through some of it into the harbor. Susan in the colonial period was the u. S. A producer of anything other than Agricultural Products . It was not the United States yet, were the colonies . Peter the british colonies were certainly exporting a lot of food goods. Wood was very important. But trade itself was very important. That, shipbuilding because of the amount of wood of skilled craftsmen, you could build ships. And being part of that trade. So we always talk about merchants. The first section of our exhibition is the merchant era, which is 1770s to the 1850s. And we call that the merchant era. What we are saying is not merchants in the notion of somebody behind a store counter, but a merchant in terms of a trader, somebody buying cargo and moving it around. So the colonists were very involved, some were very involved in merchant trade. Of course most of them were in agriculture. The time of jefferson, which is much later after the country was founded. Probably 80 of americans were involved in agriculture in one form or another. Susan so if people were to understand the roots of the american revolution, would you say they were in equal parts political and economic about trade . Peter there are many different many different causations for the revolution. But the United States, the culture of the u. S. Had a very fine look at business, at making money, at creating opportunities throughout its history. One of the things that our exhibition does is argues big big ideas for the United States, for thinking about the mentality and what drives people. That is the notions of opportunity, innovation, competition, and common good. These are the credos, the heartfelt bases of the people of the United States that separates them from many other countries. That notion of opportunity is really, at its heart, is american capitalism. The notion of common good is really american democracy. It really pushes for independence, for liberty, leave me alone, those great things are felt in that notion of democracy. But also opportunity. The chance to make money and do things. Susan one of the items from your exhibit that we want to show people from that period is the teapot. How would this have been used in society at that time . Peter this is just a wonderful piece on so many different levels. This is the english actually selling the fact that they are in trouble. The stamp act was much vilified in the u. S. And so people had an option of what types of pots they would have for their tea. Tea was a very important thing drink in the u. S. And this was a piece that represented that political thought, that tea drinking is often associated with politics. With interchange about concepts. Ideas and concepts. But what makes this delightful is that it is made in england and was made for export. So at the time, the Industrial Revolution is taking place, mechanization is taking off, and the potteries in england are becoming bigger and bigger and they need to expand their market. So they are very interested in appealing to Anyone Around the world. The American Market is certainly substantial. They make things that are in orderg themselves to make a sale, so there are many levels of interest involved in that. Susan another piece from that period is a dress that is for ascribed to Martha Washington . Peter this is a great dress. Gown. This is chinese silk. Silk at this time is imported. It really talks about the international kind of trade. If you look at the early period in the United States, there is a lot of conversation about the , that weavingun fabric, and this is a very american ideology. And by the 1850s, americans are looking back, somewhat romantically, at an earlier period they are talking about the age of homespun. The yankee woman spinning cotton, spinning silk and making for whatever and making fabric. But that dress goes to speak to the fact that International Trade, even in the time of george washington, is very significant and important. Susan so if you were a politician of the era, your choice of clothing fabric might be a political statement . Peter oh absolutely. If you look at Benjamin Harrisons wife, her gown that she wears to the inaugural of harrison is silk, but it is woven in the United States, and it is emblazoned with icons of the nation. The burr oak and things like that. Keeley is a congressman, very big protectionist, he was very careful to always Wear Clothing that was american made. Only by america. America first, and made, made in the usa is something that has been around for a long time. Susan what are we to make of the fact that the first piece of legislation passed by the congress when we signed the constitution to become a nation on july 4, 1789, sign into place on washington, placed a 5 tariff on most imported goods. Peter that totally makes sense, because any government needs money to operate. There is no income tax at this point. There has to be some source of revenue. Tariffs in this early period, really up until the 1913 is it needs to be revenuegenerating. If you are going to have a federal government, this is the argument between hamilton and jefferson, is how strong should the federal government be. If you will have a federal government, you need to be able to build things and do things. And that means funds. Some money is coming from land sales, but revenue from tariffs is one of the big drivers of government. Susan so Alexander Hamiltons secretary of the treasury at that point. He is a leading voice for tariffs. Can you talk about how he promoted the idea, and what the political debates were between his group, the federalists, and jeffersons party, who had a different point of view. Peter jefferson was a states rights, really had a different vision for the nation, really seeing the yeoman farmer as the quintessential american. Sandwiched between the notion of what jefferson probably would talk about the savagery of native americans, and the evil aristocrats of england, which would be factory workers. What he saw was the yeoman farmer, the connection to the earth as a great thing. Localcause of that saw control as important. On the other part they sought saw manufacturing and cities as the future. As such, creating an economic platform where you have tariffs to protect those infant industries, was really critical. Theyn this time period, really critical, socting thos protecting those industries is a reasonable thing. Later on, people use the same rhetoric, but its tougher to say whether it is measured in later years as fairly used as a justification for taxes. Susan so this this period of time, in the general sense, the jeffersonian democrats and then ultimately the whigs, the jeffersonian democrats were low tariff people and the whigs were high tariff people. Peter right. The farmers, throughout much of American History, the farmers of the south are not keen on tariffs because they rarely help them. They increase the cost of goods. And occasionally they will protect them, but jefferson was not for tariffs. Jefferson was not for creating a big government. The coffers was not something he was offered. He eventually has to eat his words and become a person who put tariffs into place, but not initially. Hamilton is looking at supporting the urban northeast with factories that are located and the tariffs are protecting them. The efficiency in the united state certainly at this point in the late 1700s is not very great. And caused of labor in the u. S. Is always extremely high. This is one of the, well, maybe two things you can say about the u. S. Throughout the entire history, there is a lot of land and not many people. And because of that, labor is consistently very high. And in the u. S. , people keep turning to new techniques, greater efficiency machines in order to compete with other countries, like england, that had lower labor costs. Susan as we move into the 19th century, a major figure is henry in the early part of it is henry clay. He also had this concept called the american system. What should we know about that period of time. Henry clays role in what his philosophies were . Peter he is an interesting character that comes out of kentucky. So you think he would be respecting the southern notion of being opposed to tariffs. But, in fact, he is a protectionist and his really promoting tariffs. In order to get people on board with the idea of tariffs, he argues the american system. Which has really three elements to it. One, that you charge these high tariffs that will protect industries. That you create a central bank in order to create an Economic System that is easier to have monetary exchange. And this appeals to both manufacturers, and to a degree, it appeals to the southern growers, the plantation owners, because they are, of course, selling their cotton abroad. But he also promotes infrastructure. He says that if we charge these tariffs, if we are taxing americans on these goods, raising the price on the goods, that we will take that money and we will turn around and improve canals. We will build roads. We will make navigation better. And this, in fact, will help everybody. And so he puts together this threepart alliance and tries to get people on board. He is a really interesting person. Persuasive. His campaign medallion from 1844 is one of my favorite things in our exhibition. Susan well, lets show it right now, because henry clay always had president ial ambitions, but was never successful at it. Peter it is a wonderful piece. The side with his face on it, you can see he is not very telegenic. That he doesnt really have the physique that people warm up to. The backside is the part that i love. This medallion was struck in 1844 and it was a campaign token. He would hand them out and say, vote for me. On the back you can see henry clay, the champion of a protective tariff, then there is an image. Visual analysis is something that curators love to do. And so looking at this tells you so much about what is going on. You can see the freighter of the sailing ship,sted is flying the american flag. You can see what line it is. In the foreground, you can see that there is industry. You have got and agricultural that you you have a plow with a sheaf of wheat hung over it. The argument being that the protective tariff will help the manufacturers who are shipping their goods, but it will also help the farmer. This is really a view. Because there is something not in the image. What is missing is a bale of cotton. In 1844, the biggest u. S. Export is cotton. And you can see that henry clay gave up on the south. Is appealinge to the west. In thinking