The China History Podcast · Laszlo Montgomery

McKinley, Tariffs, and the Open Door Policy

·44 min·2 clips

John Hay’s memorandum gave the Open Door Policy three concrete rules for China trade.

1. The China History Podcast episode is about William McKinley, tariffs, and the Open Door Policy in China. 2. Laszlo Montgomery hosts the episode and frames McKinley as the 25th president whose tariff politics matter again in 2025. 3. The episode asks why McKinley-era trade policy and China policy still echo in Trump-era tariff debates. 4. Montgomery starts with the Tariff Act of 1890, which raised the average tariff to 48 percent under Benjamin Harrison. 5. He says the act included a reciprocity clause for trading nations that gave the United States a break. 6. He contrasts the 1890 tariff debate with Wilson-Gorman, Dingley, and Smoot-Hawley as later tariff examples. 7. He links Trump’s reversion of Mount Denali to Mount McKinley to the broader McKinley revival. 8. Montgomery argues that McKinley-time tariffs produced winners and losers, including short-term inflation and higher consumer prices. 9. He says farmers took a huge hit and retaliatory tariffs followed against the United States. 10. He moves to the Wang Xia Treaty of 1844 as the starting point for the American idea of an open China market. 11. He quotes Daniel Webster on the United States remaining on terms of friendship with the Chinese emperor only if other powers received no better commercial privileges. 12. He describes the 1890s as a period of overproduction in the United States and heavy dependence on the China market. 13. He says half of southern cotton exports went to China before the boll weevil infestation. 14. He also names kerosene, wheat flour, iron, and steel as U.S. products that depended on Chinese demand. 15. He connects the Spanish-American War, the acquisition of the Philippines for $20 million, and the annexation of Hawaii to America’s Pacific turn in 1898. 16. He says the American China Development Corporation, the New York Chamber of Commerce, and the cotton lobby pushed Washington to protect trade in China after the Treaty of Shimonoseki. 17. He explains that John Hay, William Woodville Rockhill, Lord Charles Beresford, Alfred Hippisley, and the American Asiatic Association shaped the Open Door campaign. 18. He says Rockhill’s August 24, 1899 memorandum became the blueprint for the Open Door Policy and was sent to Russia, Britain, France, Japan, and Germany on September 6. 19. The episode uses a measured historical style with long chronological explanation, quoted documents, and frequent comparisons between the 1890s and 2025. 20. Listeners interested in U.S.-China trade history and late Qing diplomacy would fit best, while listeners wanting a short, simple tariff explainer might skip it.

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McKinley becomes a window into tariffs, empire, and the politics of China trade.

The episode turns McKinley, tariffs, and the Open Door Policy into a focused look at tariffs, lobbying, and China trade. Laszlo Montgomery begins with McKinley and the tariff debate, then moves through the 1890 tariff act, the people defending protection at home, and the…

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Tariff politics puts McKinley and China trade in the same room.

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