Herbert Hoover signed the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act during the period surrounding the 1929 crash.
President Herbert Hoover signed the act on June 17, 1930. It raised U.S. tariffs on thousands of imported goods, and many trading partners responded with retaliatory duties. International trade contracted sharply during the early Great Depression.
The law did not cause the 1929 Wall Street crash, which began before Hoover signed it. However, economists and historians debate how much Smoot–Hawley deepened the subsequent economic downturn by reducing international trade and worsening uncertainty.
Hoover became president in March 1929, months before the crash. Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated him in the 1932 election and took office in 1933. This timeline matters because public discussions sometimes incorrectly attribute the law to Roosevelt or treat it as the original trigger of the crash.