Yes we do.
Adam Smith never envisioned multi national corporations closing factories in England and moving production to the third world to exploit cheap labor and then re importing the same product back into England duty free! Smith would have been hung for that. That is not Free Trade. That is f--k trade.
The rest of the world practices protectionism. The rest of the world charges really high import duties on our exports, the rest of the world operates with a trade surplus. So there must be something good about import tariffs. So you point out the possible negative aspects of raising our import tariff to be more in line with the rest of the worlds tariff rates but can you name ONE thing good about raising tariffs? Intellectual honesty would be appreciated.
Ask yourself this: Who benefits from tariffs? Producers get protected from competition, so you as a consumer get to pay higher prices. Back in the 1960’s when steel was protected by tariffs, it was hard for me to support that plan that helped steel workers earn twice what I did. Most durable goods use steel in some form, so I got to pay higher prices to bolster the incomes of a relatively small number of workers. Not my idea of a good plan. Who gets the tariff income? The gov’t, even though they didn’t do a damn thing to earn it.
I could support tariffs if the gov’t promised to give it to producers to implement more productive means of production and a pledge to lower prices when the investment comes on line. If they can’t do that, then the gov’t should refund the tariff income as a rebate to those who buy the domestic product.
However, seeing how gov’t handles subsidies (Solyndra), I’d rather forget about tariffs altogether.