That's the nut of the idea, that most of us will be worse off paying higher taxes so that those who are underemployed (for whatever reason) will be better off. We've been hearing this idea a lot over the years and what happens is that while most of us do in fact become worse off as expected, the underemployed folks never do become better off as promised.
Historic tariff rates and unemployment numbers are there for all to see; import tax cuts mean more jobs.
I’ve no doubt that importing goods does create some jobs, but not all jobs are equal. A manufacturing job may pay five times what a retail sales job pays. Manufacturing jobs also create more jobs to support them.
The best example in economics is mining, a unique historical economic benchmark. Economic zones that mine prosper, when mining declines, they decline. This is because mines create many more businesses, with a ripple effect to an economy.
By the time nations create tariffs and trade barriers, they are usually already in trouble, and it might take many years to show positive results to limiting trade. But it is most likely a better result than free trade over time.
To cite an example of a free trade disaster, a reason for the huge trade imbalance between China and the US can be seen outside of the West Coast ports. Immense number of expensive Chinese built shipping containers that radically increased the cost of imports, because they were never sent back. The back haul was too expensive. Now stacked in mountains and slowly rusting.
At the same time, there was explosive growth in the Chinese shipping container industry. And iron and coal mining, and smelting, and sheet metal fabrication. Their industries boomed, while ours went bust.