Free trade only works in the long term with a common government between the free traders.
I think right now the best idea we can aim for is a revenue-generating value-added import tariff of about 22% with the aim of making domestic production and imports revenue-neutral to the federal government. Then let everyone do whatever they want without further government interference!
Free trade is a misnomer. We have a system of managed or regulated trade between countries. Trade agreements are very complex documents with some enforcement by international agencies. These agreements have been negotiated at high government levels. Governments (including our own) routinely disregard and stretch the limits of the agreements. The posters on this site are naive (or perhaps blind) to think that trade disputes are one-sided (the rest of the world taking advantage of the U.S.). Most or even every country has legitimate complaints about U.S. adherence to trade agreements.
Individuals who want to erect more trade barriers play into the hands of labor cartels and select businesses. Labor cartels want to squezze the American consumer by forcing them to buy inferior labor cartel products at artificially high prices. If you think that labor cartels are a problem now, just wait until more trade barriers are erected.
Our main problems are government imposed employment and production costs along with a growing entitlement mentality. For example, a major reason that many foreign companies setup production and employment here was because of our flexible labor force. The rats are attempting to destroy labor flexibility through labor cartel mandates and subsidies along with major changes in employment law. Together, these burdens weaken our competitive position. We need to unleash American ingenuity and hard work by reducing government burdens. For example, one way to unleashe opportunity for IT work here, is to relax tax laws about employment relations. Tax laws make it very difficult to be an independent contractor. In the 1980s before tax law changes, it was easy to be an IT contractor.
I've read that 5 times and it makes no sense whatsoever (of course, none of the other protectionist arguments here do either). Don't you understand that tariffs will be paid by us? They are not paid by the exporters -- they are paid by the consumer.
Protectionism is emotion-driven -- much like liberalism come to think of it.