In the nineteenth century, world trade grew rapidly, in part because the leading trading nation at the time—the United Kingdom—pursued a vigorous policy of free trade. In contrast, US tariffs averaged about 50 percent, although they had fallen to around 30 percent by the early 1920s. As the industrial economies went into the Great Depression of the late 1920s and 1930s, there was pressure to protect domestic jobs by keeping out imports. Tariffs in the United States returned to around 50 percent, and the United Kingdom abandoned the policy of free trade that had been pursued for nearly a century. The combination of world recession and increasing tariffs led to a disastrous slump in the volume of world trade, further exacerbated by World War II.
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