I see you know your free-trade history. I’ve spent my entire life working in a region (Latin America) that for a time rejected the idea of free-trade based on comparative advantage.
And we’re still dealing with the consequences of Import Substitution Industrialization (i.e., we can make all we need right here at home). As you would expect, all manners of protectionism (tariffs, quotas, subsidies, currency manipulation, exchange controls) were fundamental to the policy, and what a disaster it was!
Bewilderingly, these ideas persist.
As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I attended one of America’s finest educational institutions. We learned Austrian economics: Mises, Hayek, and the like.