I agree with you completely. In fact it was Britain the was a mercantile state, using tariffs as an economic sword against Europe and its own colonies. Yes, America experimented with tariffs here and there. I think however that what we have with China is very uneven, and is a trade agreement that gives China 90% of what they need, and 10% for America. What many don’t know that during the free market heyday in the US, the US actually had HIGHER wages than Europe. And all the rail roads that were supported by government largesse failed, and the private rail roads succeeded.
There's no economic principle that says there's an advantage in export equaling imports between two particular countries. When we go to the grocery store, our imports outweigh our exports by 100%, but we're very happy with that and generally come home with what I want.
This is part of the massive confusion I was talking about. "Fairness" means coercive government interference that will result in very little fairness or freedom. But a society that puts freedom ahead of fairness will have a great deal of both.