Our trade “partners” have many barriers to entry of our manufactured products, from Japan’s keiretsus and health and safety laws to China’s demand for technology transfers in the case of Boeing.
Somehow they manage to prosper. Apparently the world only ends if we do something that impairs their access to our market.
It’s just one of those Great Mysteries of Life where American industries will fail if there is a any sort of protection but foreign firms don’t. Go figure.
Some of us have noticed that millions of Americans employed by small manufacturers have already lost their jobs, showing that the lack of serious thought on the subject belongs to you.
You're avoiding addressing the point that large tariff increases will hurt millions of Americans.
Of course we've lost lots of manufacturing jobs, for a variety of reasons, but ending trade with the other 6 billion people in the world won't help.
It's just whistling past the graveyard to pretend that we can close our markets and the rest of the world won't.
There may still be trade barriers, but we still export over $2T in goods and services according to the World Bank.
What happens to our economy when that ends?