Why 'Great Depression' Is Trending on Social Media

President Donald Trump has once again caused a social media firestorm.

After much speculation, on Wednesday (April 2) Trump announced a 10 percent tariff on all imported goods that will go into effect this Friday (April 4).

The president also announced a 25 percent tariff on all foreign-made automobiles that took effect today (April 3).

In true Trump fashion, his speech was accompanied by his own spin on historical stories, some of which are debatable.

'Great Depression' Trending on Social Media

On Wednesday, Trump stated that the 1930s Great Depression could have been avoided if tariffs on imported goods had continued.

"From 1789 to 1913, we were a tariff-backed nation, and the United States was proportionately the wealthiest it has ever been," the president said in a speech, alleging the U.S. was "collecting so much money, so fast, we didn’t know what to do with it!"

"In 1929, it all came to a very abrupt end with the Great Depression, and it would have never happened if they had stayed with the tariff policy; it would have been a much different story. They tried to bring back tariffs to save our country, but it was gone, it was gone, it was too late. Nothing could have been done, [it] took years and years to get out of that depression," he added.

In 1930, Congress passed the Tariff Act, also known as the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which raised tariffs on goods imported into the U.S.

The act is widely considered to be what caused the economic downturn, referred to as the Great Depression, from 1929 to 1939.

Unemployment was at an all-time high, and there were mass business closures around the country and the world.

The Great Depression was solved by many factors, including New Deal programs enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to stimulate the economy, as well as the beginning of World War II.

Following Trump's speech, users took to social media to snarkily react to his tariff announcement.

Below are some reactions from X (formerly Twitter) to the president's bold claims about the Great Depression.