by James Hickman
Schiff Sovereign
By the late 1920s, the US economy was booming and had advantages that most of the world did not yet enjoy.
Manufacturing in America was extremely competitive due to mass electrification powering factories. Farmers had traded out horses and mules for trucks and tractors.
US productivity was surging.
Global trade was still recovering from World War I, but there was enough sense at the League of Nations (the precursor to the United Nations) to campaign against trade barriers.
The final report from the World Economic Conference in 1927 concluded that “the time has come to put an end to tariffs. . .”