“Trade barriers reduce income and people’s economic well-being. There are no arguments that show trade barriers produce net positive economic results only political ones.”
The United States became the worlds’ largest manufacturer by 1940. Certainly “trade barriers” with had insufficient subtraction to slow that, or were a net add.
China practices all forms of trade protection, from tariff to currency manipulation to outright embargo.
They have risen to, at least, the second largest economy in the world since 1950.
That’s two pretty good arguments if you ask to judge results.
Tariffs are a political instrument for revenue to fund the government, to protect critical industries (as politically determined) or to punish an offending nation with high trade barriers.
In 1940 the US and world economies were in a state of collapse one of the reasons for that collapse was the passing of the Smoot-Harley Law in 1930 which killed international trade. Our growth prior to that was military based from WW1 and the void left by the destruction of the British Empire in that war.
It is no news that China does not have free trade but restricts the freedom of its citizens and seizes the profits from international trade. Surely that is not what you want.
Tariffs can easily by turned into an instrument of oppression as in a totalitarian society like China.