Editing Reciprocal Tariff Act (section)

=== Historical partisan divide over tariffs and the RTAA ===
After the Civil War, Democrats were generally for [[trade liberalization]], and Republicans were generally for higher tariffs. The pattern was clear in congressional votes for tariffs from 1860 to 1930. Democrats were the congressional minority in the majority of Congresses between the Civil War and the election of Roosevelt. During their brief stints in the majority, Democrats passed several tariff reduction bills. Examples include the [[Wilson–Gorman Tariff Act|Wilson–Gorman Act of 1894]] and the [[Revenue Act of 1913|Underwood Tariff Act of 1913]]. However, subsequent Republican majorities always undid the unilateral tariff reductions.<ref name="Hiscox"/>

By the Great Depression, tariffs were at historic highs. Members of Congress commonly entered in informal ''[[quid pro quo]]'' agreements in which they voted for other members' preferred tariffs in order to secure support for their own. No one took into account the aggregate toll on American [[consumer]]s or [[exporter]]s. That practice is commonly referred to as [[logrolling]]. Roosevelt and key members of his administration were intent on stopping the practice.<ref name="Alt"/>

Democrats voted for trade liberalization far more often than Republicans but were not uniform in their preferences. Democrats skeptical of reducing tariffs during the Depression included Representative [[Henry Rainey]] (D-IL) and members of Roosevelt's own administration: [[Rexford Tugwell]], [[Raymond Moley]], and [[Adolf Berle]]. However, the administration decided to take advantage of having a Democrat-controlled Congress and Presidency to push through the RTAA. In 1936 and 1940, the Republican Party ran on a platform of repealing the tariff reductions secured under the RTAA. However, when they won back Congress in 1946, they did not act to remove the tariffs. In the years since the enactment of the RTAA in 1934, the economies of Europe and [[East Asia]] had been decimated by the violence of [[World War II]], which left a huge global production vacuum that was filled by American exporters.<ref name="Hiscox"/> During the war, the United States had its highest positive account balance in its history. Republican preferences for tariffs started shifting, as exporters from home districts began to benefit from increased [[international trade]]. By the 1950s, there was no statistically significant difference between Republicans and Democrats on tariff policies, a change that has endured ever since.<ref name="Bailey"/>