China 1990 to present. High import tariffs and huge industrial growth. So you would be wrong. Totally wrong.
The tarrifs haven’t provided or supplied China with jobs enmasse and haven’t built up the middle class. Their production has done that. The US starts a tarrif war you can bet anything on it the middle class here would be killed. Getting government out of the way is the only solution. It would allow for the free building of production factories uninhibited for product production and sale inside the US. Why would we ever in our lives think it’s conservative to allow the government to pick the winners and losers of products in a free marketplace by imposing tarrifs? That is called totalitarian control and is in no way a free market.
We start imposing tarrifs those costs will be without a doubt passed to the consumer. There is no debating that. That is why I hate tarrifs when a federal income tax is in place. Either get rid of fed income tax and impose tarrifs or get the hell out of the way of a free marketplace and keep the fed tax in place.