We had high tariffs for the first 180 years of our country’s existence, and we did just fine.
Our founding fathers viewed tariffs as a tax on foreigners wanting to sell into our economy. They also viewed it as a voluntary tax paid when American citizens chose not to buy American made products.
Since we lowered the tariffs in the 1960’s, we’ve seen an accelerating erosion of industry as more and more jobs get offshored to third world countries where the labor cost is extremely cheap.
In a world without tariffs, jobs will continue to offshore until American wages and Chinese wages are equal. Chinese make $2 a day for a 12 hour day. A world without tariffs is a race to the bottom.
That is just archaic foolishness borne of ignorance of modern business