I believe that tariffs can and should be used on a case-by-case basis as an efficient means to get our trading partners to follow agreed upon rules of trade.
I believe that a laissez-faire free-market economy as proposed by some purists is a logical impossibility, so trying to create an economy, for instance, that has no tariffs is a goal that is not worth trying to attain.
Samuelson makes a great point that China is not abiding by its international trading agreements, and that one method for encouraging them to do so would be targeted tariffs.
He also makes the good point that this would not amount to the same level or breadth of tariffs that were imposed leading up to and during the Great Depression so we would not be repeating history.
There is some elbow room for well crafted tariffs.
Well, tariffs are taxes the expense of which will be passed on to you and I either by higher prices or less choices or both. Its a sad substitute for robust free-market competition which “impossibly” worked in America until around 1930 as well as other places like Hong Kong that eschew government meddling.