The Tariff Act of 1789, was the first major Act passed in the United States under its present Constitution of 1789 and had two purposes as stated in Section I of the Act which reads as follows;
“Whereas it is necessary for that support of government, for the discharge of the debts of the United States, and the encouragement and protection of manufactures, that duties be laid on goods, wares and merchandise:”[1]
The Federal legislature, acting under the recently ratified US Constitution, authorized the collection of tariff and tonnage duties to meet the operating costs of the new central government, to provide funds to pay the interest and principal on revolutionary war debts inherited from the Continental Congress.[2] It also provided a degree of protection. “The protective acts of the states furnished the experience on which the national legislators based their proceedings.”[3] The general range of duties was by no means such as would have been thought protective in later days; but the intention to protect was there.[4] ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariff_of_1789
Yes, to get things started, tariff protection made sense, but now, no. It make matters worse.