The founding fathers put in high import tariffs and they served us well for 180 years. Reducing them was a major mistake that resulted in high unemployment, industry loss, and real wage stagnation.
The tariff was not designed for protection in the early part of the 1800’s. It was designed to raise revenue. Protection versus revenue tariffs. A really effective protective tariff raises little or no revenue.
The tariff revenue was a principle source of revenue for the federal government for a good part of the early 1800’s. And we paid off the national debt sometime in the early 1830s as I recall.