Trump’s protectionist beliefs are old news but this has shown up on Instapundit today: Trump wants a 45 percent tax on Chinese imports.

“I would tax China on products coming in,” the Republican presidential front-runner told the New York Times. “And the tax, let me tell you what the tax should be … the tax should be 45 percent.”

The savvy [!!!] New York businessman released a policy paper on U.S.-China trade reform in early November that detailed his plans, as president, to take action against China’s currency manipulation and intellectual property theft, and to strengthen America’s negotiating position with the potential U.S. adversary.

Until now, however, none of Trump’s rhetoric on U.S.-Chinese relations has included any mention of a 45 percent tariff on Chinese exports to the U.S.

I know history is bunk and all that, but do we really want to bring back Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression? The story inserts the mildest, virtually non-existent criticism of such an idea, that makes you worry that this may well be an idea whose time has come, even if it will be a idea whose time will have gone a year after it would be put in:

According to David Dollar, a senior fellow in the Brookings Institution’s China Center, Trump’s suggested tariff could open the door to negative implications for both countries, if instituted.

“Negative implications” – that’s really nailing it. On top of everything going on already, to stop international trade in its tracks would be a policy as devastating as it is possible to have. Even the comment at Instapundit – “As Tom Nichols tweets, ‘I bet this sounds awesome to people who have no idea how much stuff they buy from China.’” – gives the impression that they have little idea what the effect would be. In so many ways, this is the 1930s all over again.