First of all, tariffs DO hamper GDP. Tariffs on anything purchased with a tariff attached and used to offer other products or services has just artificially increased the cost and therefore prices of those goods. Also the money that would have gone back into the economy has just been wasted by going instead to the federal government.
“Free Trade as executed in the latter part of the 20th century” is an oxymoron. Government has so unconstitutionally and radically inserted itself into our economy that it has little resemblance to a free market.
So let’s not impose tariffs because the other countries would again pass the cost onto us. We’re supposed to keep giving everything to the bullies because to deny them our money, factories, and jobs might piss them off, right?
No thanks.