I think many of you interpreted this to mean that I was somewhat tariff-positive. My view is more that we have had a tariff policy, as we have had an industrial policy, but since we largely pretended we have neither of those things, it was difficult ever to talk about them.
Our policies are therefore largely a combination of accident and lobbyist rent seeking, though there was a bit more explicit acknowledgment during the Biden years.
The tariff schedule didn't read "zero" across the board before Trump showed up. Biden's tariffs received surprisingly little pushback from anyone. I'm not arguing they were good or bad, more that despite decades of Tom Friedman Ruling Our World, they were weirdly off the discussion menu.
We pretended we had achieved Free Trade like some sort of End Of History thing.
You don't have to be a protectionist to think that we should maintain some onshore productive capacity of for certain things. I don't even think this is especially controversial, but talking about what and how to achieve that has been hidden behind a lot globollocks.