Then other countries will retaliate with tariffs on the goods you export. Ultimately we are all left worse off.

> Ultimately we are all left worse off.

This is simply not true. Protectionism can have massive benefits. China making it impossible for foreign companies to gain serious ground there independently has been incredibly beneficial, else they wouldn't have done it. I happen to live in Korea which is similar in ways, and here too it's an enormously good thing for the country and its citizens.

The dream that protectionism is bad by definition is truly one of the biggest deceptions in economy of the post-Reagan era.

It's a great thing because it's basically funneling money from global megacorps to local corporations - which might still be huge, but nothing compared to e.g. Coca Cola or Google. This is a positive thing for everyone except for those companies' shareholders, and in a way the US as that's where almost all these megacorps are based.

This is really an important thing to realize, and I can't stress this enough. It's exactly like the EU imposing lots of regulations on Apple et. al. Apple isn't just going to take their bags and not sell there, nor have they raised prices to EU customers as a result of these rules. They simply comply.

Imagine if, say, Germany ruled that to sell Coke in Germany as an international company, you have to set up a 50-50 owned JV with an existing German company unrelated to Coke. You think Coke is neither going to give up on Germany nor are they going to raise their prices. They're simply going to be making less of a profit in Germany. Great for everyone. It has played out this way in every country with such rules in place.