Look if we are going to retrench, we have to stop the bleeding. The union workers are the blame for the high costs. If we are going to kill industry, lets kill it right. Sustaining the status quo is a slow death. Maybe Caterpillars business model is wrong. Maybe they should move their factory to a right to work state? But due to corruption in government that can't happen. The country ran on tariffs for over 80 years before the income tax. So get over it.
As for as heavy machinery goes, if tariff cause more caterpillars to be sold domestically I'm for it. I am tired of seeing Hitachi and other foreign brands on construction sites anyway.
I have nothing to "get over," but note that advocates of tariffs as industrial policy tend to shift back and forth between that and advocating tariffs as revenue policy. Yet when advocating tariffs as revenue (or tax) policy, those proponents never take the next step--as if to claim, "let's just raise tariffs now, and deal with all the other taxes later." How retarded is that?