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"Your statement includes the following: but imports would increase significantly.."

Yes, imports would increase in price (not in quantity) because they would have the sales tax levied on them (just as domestically produced goods would). However, unlike domestically produced goods, they would not enjoy the benefit of the removal of the currently imbedded (US) tax system. Therefore, US produced goods would stay about the same price as they currently are (after-tax) and imports would increase (also after-tax). The 23% difference is more than enough to affect the buying patterns of consumers.

In that regard, the FairTax works like an import tariff, at least relative to the current system. However, unlike a tariff, the FairTax is imminently defensible to the WTO and our trading partners because we can simply point out that we are taxing imports identically to the way we tax our own domestic production. In essence, we are correcting the current imbalance that exists in our tax system which provides an disadvantage to domestic producers vs their international counterparts. We are the ones who are handicapping our own producers and we are the only ones who can fix it.