And on top of that, when a bully is punching you, you can’t do nothing and expect them to stop punching you more. That will NEVER work for a bully, instead you have to punch them back sufficiently hard in order to immediately stop them from punching you more or do something even worse, if you could stop them at all. So an immediate retaliatory response is in fact absolutely necessary, and a retaliatory tariff is pretty much the only practical option for an immediate response.

But then again, it’s entirely possible this is exactly what Trump plotted. Damn he really is an adversary to American people and everybody except himself and maybe Putin, so you really have to analyze him accordingly, what a fucked up world we are in now :(

Everything you described takes half a decade minimal to be put into reality. You are literally describing building a whole fricking industry. And we all know how fast you can establish industries in North America.

When a literal bully is stabbing you, you do NOT wait for half a decade to do something about that.

Instead, retaliatory tariffs are pretty much the only thing they can do instantly as a government.