Ferris Bueller scene goes viral as Trump tariffs take effect: ‘Did it work? Anyone?’
Ben Stein plays an economics teacher explaining how tariffs exacerbated the Great Depression
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A classic scene from the 1986 John Hughes comedy Ferris Bueller’s Day Off has resurfaced on social media as users link it to Donald Trump’s newly introduced tariffs on Mexico and China.
In the famous sequence, an economics teacher played by Ben Stein attempts to teach a listless class of students about how the introduction of tariffs exacerbated the Great Depression.
Addressing the class and receiving no response to his many attempts to prompt his students, Stein’s teacher says: “In 1930, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, in an effort to alleviate the effects of the... Anyone? Anyone?
“Great Depression. Passed the... anyone? anyone? The tariff bill. The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act. Which... anyone? Raised or lowered?
“Raised tariffs in an effort to collect more revenue for the federal government. Did it work? Anyone?... Anyone know the effects?... It did not work, and the United States sank deeper into the Great Depression.”
The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act was introduced following the 1929 stock market crash by Republican politicians Senator Reed Smoot and Representative Willis Hawley.
President Herbert Hoover signed the tariff increases into law in 1930, and modern-day economists and historians now say the steep increases worsened the effects of the Great Depression. In 1932, Hoover was defeated in his bid for re-election by the Democratic candidate Franklin D Roosevelt, who introduced sweeping reforms and public work projects known as the New Deal. Both Smoot and Hawley lost their seats.
On X/Twitter, one economics professor shared the clip with the caption: “Ferris Bueller is strikingly more instructive than 99.99% of political commentators on tariffs.”
Another user added: “Apparently it is once again time to bring back the lesson on tariffs from Ferris Bueller...”
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Since Trump’s tariffs came into effect earlier today, the stock markets have already tumbled as Wall Street braces for the impact on the US’s largest trading partners.
The president has introduced 25 percent trade tariffs on Mexico and Canada and also added an extra 10 percent levy on China on top of the 10 percent he imposed last month.
Despite the prospect of its negative effects on the market, Trump said at the White House yesterday that there was “no room left for Mexico or for Canada.” He added: “The tariffs, they’re all set; they go into effect tomorrow.”
The president has previously stressed that the tariffs are the result of the influx of drugs, namely fentanyl, coming into the U.S. from its neighbors.
“Just so you understand, vast amounts of fentanyl have poured into our country from Mexico, and as you know also from China ... it comes in from Canada, and it comes in from Mexico, and that's a very important thing to say,” Trump claimed.
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