Does Greg Mankiw Know the History of U.S. Trade Policy?

Greg offers us a nice speech by Saint Reagan. While Ronald Reagan preached free trade, Jeffrey Frankel notes that his actual record was rather protectionist. The discussion is an excellent account of how Republicans have been protectionist since 1854. But the really weird thing in Reagan’s discussion was how he claimed the U.S. has been a free trade nation since 1776. Of course Congress passed the Tariff Act of 1789:

One of the major early actions of Congress was the passage of the Tariff Act of 1789, which was designed to: raise revenues for the new government by placing a tariff on the importation of foreign goods (averaging more than 8 percent); encourage domestic production in such industries as glass and pottery by taxing the importation of those products from foreign sources.

Someone at Harvard’s history department should visit Mankiw’s office.