Protectionism never works.
Of course it does. It worked great for our country until 1960 when we lowered our tariffs.
Here read the excerpt "The dilberately forgotten history of trade" from the book "Why Free trade doesn't work. What should replace it and why."
Thomas Jefferson for years thought that American should remain an agricultural economy and just trade with Europe for manufactured goods. Then the "unthinkable happenned" and Europe cut us off. That's when Jefferson realized that a strong industrial base was necessary to maintain a free state.