Jeff Jacoby’s column “Why ‘antidumping’ tariffs should be dumped’’ (Opinion, May 22) was spot-on. The Tariff Act of 1930, cosponsored by Senator Reed Smoot of Utah and Representative Willis Hawley of Oregon, both Republicans, raised tariffs on thousands of imports to the United States, and, many economists agree, extended the Depression by years.

Today’s politicians (including Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, and Donald Trump), in their rush to pander to the union vote, risk making the same mistake. As Jacoby points out, the Chinese steel that finds its way into the United States is a boon to American consumers because it makes our cars, refrigerators, stoves — any product that uses steel — considerably cheaper.

Trade protectionism in an ever more open, globalized world is an invitation to tariff retaliation that would negatively affect millions of US export-related jobs, such as those at the General Electric plant in Lynn.

The way to help American workers whose jobs have been lost to technology (think robotics), or outsourcing, or both, is not to start a tariff war, but rather to create more US jobs through innovation, at which America is the best in the world, and to provide people with more and better retraining.

Warren Salinger

Rockport