“The whole article is a lie. America went from a fringe settlement on the edge of a continental wilderness to a world manufacturing power thanks to tariffs. “
THAT - what you said is a lie. It was the industriosness of the American people and American companies, not tarriffs.
Tarrifs that work when you are not yet very industrialized or just on your way to being very industrialized, will not work them same when you and most your trade partners are very industrialized. Your economic intercourse with your trade partners have become a working part of your own domestic industries. You try to put the genie back in the bottle - take conditions far back in time - and the economy will get very sick for a long time before it recovers.
The proof is in the pudding. America, by using tariffs to protect itself from predatory English mercantilist practices became a manufacturing superpower. Tariffs were one of the pillars of the American System that allowed the rapid development and industrialization of the United States. The U.S. pursued a protectionist policy from the beginning of the 19th century until the middle of the 20th century. Between 1861 and 1933, they had one of the highest average tariff rates on manufactured imports in the world. However American agricultural and industrial goods were cheaper than rival products and the tariff had an impact primarily on wool products. After 1942 the U.S. began to promote worldwide free trade and now China, which is very protective of its industries, has an economy larger that the U.S.