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We could go back to an agricultural economy too if you want to live in the past. Read up on this to see why we had to move to free trade. In short, if we raise tariffs, other countries will follow suit, and destroy our economy in the process, for no good reason whatsoever.

Protectionism sucks. It’s one of the many economically ignorant planks of the Bernie Sanders platform. Like all socialism, it will make our lives poorer and more painful.

http://articles.latimes.com/1996-03-10/opinion/op-45497_1_free-trade

The Smoot-Hawley Bill of 1932 was the last great protective tariff the United States ever passed—and it ended in disaster. When the United States raised its tariffs in the middle of the Depression, its major trading countries raised their tariffs, too. U.S. imports fell—but so did U.S. exports. More jobs were lost, and the Depression got worse.

When we raised our tariffs in 1932, the British cheated: They raised theirs back. The result was a trade war and an economic crisis in both countries.

For 50 years, America pursued a policy of opening markets. Europe and Japan got rich—but so did we. Increased exports created millions of jobs in the United States. And imports made our lives better too. Imports keep prices down by forcing companies to compete harder to produce quality goods at reasonable prices.

We could go back to an agricultural economy too if you want to live in the past.

At the rate we are de industrializing we may be an agro service economy before to long. I want to stop that, you don't.

The Smoot-Hawley lie you throw around has been debunked.

U.S. goods imports declined from $5.3 billion in 1929 to just $1.7 billion in 1933, while U.S. goods exports fell from $4.4 billion in 1929 to a mere $1.5 billion in 1933.

If these drops were so great and so influential, why doesn't Milton Friedman mention them? First, in comparison to the total economy ($50B GNP), foreign trade was a small part of the United States economy. Second, the total balance of trade deficit went from (0.9 billion to 0.2 billion). In other words, the United States was losing less money because of Smoot-Hawley. It was in aggregate better off.