How did the hawley-smoot tariff spread the depression overseas?

When the United States sank into the Depression after the stock market crash of 1929, government leaders scrambled for answers. Congress members Willis Hawley and Reed Smoot proposed protectionist policies, putting high tariffs on imported foreign goods. They wanted to protect the American economy. Actually, what mostly happened is the tariff action served to worsen the Depression and extend it globally. European nations responded with tariffs and trade policies of their own, against the United States. At a time when trade and confidence in markets was shaky worldwide, a trade war was a bad idea - - only making trade shrink further. The Depression became a global phenomenon for this (an other) reasons.