Minimal if any trade tariffs ? Are you delusional ? Try exporting rice to Japan. Good luck because somehow, someway the worthy Japanese inspectors will find it unfit for Japanese consumption, thereby protecting their own farm lobby.
The Asian economies borrowed the sage advice of Hamilton and McKinley and grew rich behind tariff walls.
I am not talking about the more recent Japan--it was great before now. However, if you want to look at economic freedom, please visit the Heritage Foundation's most recent Index of Economic Freedom here:
http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/countries.html
We aren't the same country as when we were once, either.
By the way, Hong Kong, Singapore, and New Zealand are still more economically free than are we. Are their economies shrinking?