Hardly a day goes by during the frenetic first fortnight of his presidency that Donald Trump does not lavish praise on his late-19th century predecessor William McKinley, a.k.a. the "Napoleon of Protection."
"President McKinley made our country very rich through tariffs and through talent — he was a natural businessman," Trump enthused during his inauguration speech. At a rally in Las Vegas Saturday, the president asserted that the high-tariff era of 1870–1913 was "the richest our country ever was," attributing those protectionist policies to the man who wrote the major tariff increase of 1890 and then signed another into law in 1897. And most symbolically, Trump on his first day in office re-re-christened North America's tallest peak as "Mount McKinley."
But the text of that executive order, coupled with the president's promiscuous daily threats of punitive tariffs, illustrate the recklessness of hewing too closely to McKinley's mercantilism.
