While the IMF uses tariffs, I would never entrust the creation or management of a tariff to the IMF. This is because tariffs are a tool that a nation uses for its own advantage. If not used for that purpose, it is likely worse medicine than the disease.
I will not disagree but what I outlined is the way of the world. Accepting IMF money can be very very painful and expensive.
I have watched it for nearly 20 years now.
You're thoughtful, and you know that the IMF is made up of the people the elites appoint. Those same elites want government control, which is to say people control. They themselves will be at the top.
There are real costs to free trade and it does create losers in an economic sense. Keep in mind that the current labor imbalance is due to government intervention in the market.
Government schools have created a system of educational failure that has caught up to us. Why should education stop? Pile on government regulations, licensing and permitting that prevent labor mobility. Add in a housing market rigged to benefit banks and the securities markets at the expense of individuals. This housing market then traps people even more. Toss on the student loan debt bomb encouraged by the federal government. You know the list continues on and on.
That's the real source of unemployment, not China which doesn't account for that much US trade in the first place. Free trade is by definition liberty, individual liberty.