Absolutely, like most things economic, we can debate the merits forever. But what's not debatable are economic and historical facts. The blanket claim was that tariffs hurt US businesses and workers. We know this is factually incorrect because we can look to the US economy and businesses in the 1800s where we rose from a relatively underdeveloped nation to the largest economy in the world with the world's largest businesses under a tariff heavy century. We can look to west germany, japan, korea and now china also.

Now that doesn't mean tariffs never hurt businesses. My belief is that tariffs can help or hurt businesses. I don't like ideological blanket statements like "Tariffs are always bad" or "Tariffs are always good". Tariffs are a national tool. Like any tool, it can be use for good or bad.