that in all nations this regulating power embraced the protection of domestic manufactures by duties and restrictions on imports; that the States had tried in vain to make use of the power, while it remained with them; and that, if taken from them and transferred to the Federal Government, with an exception of the power to encourage domestic manufactures, the American people,
let it be repeated, present the solitary and strange spectacle of a nation disarming itself of a power exercised by every nation as a shield against the effect of the power as used by other nations. James Madison, on the tranfer of the regulation of trade from the states to the general government.
That is a political opinion, that is not economics. Economics has been clear on this since the days of Adam Smith: protectionism fails, free trade wins. You can balk, but the track record of protectionism is one of recession, depression, inefficiency, waste, poverty, and want.