The Tariff Act of 1890 raised taxes to 49.5% on 1,500-plus items. Championing the move was the “Napoleon of Protectionism,” William McKinley, an Ohio Republican congressman who would be elected president in 1896 and one of Trump’s heroes.

President Donald Trump’s trade policy just took another sharp turn, as Trump announced on Truth Social that he was jacking China tariffs higher to 125 percent but issuing a 90-day pause for many of the “Liberation Day” tariffs that had begun to squeeze other countries around the world today.