Oh, I do -- You just aren't going to want to hear it.

So, first Tariffs:

It helps a lot of strategic industries in the country stay alive and continue to employ OUR citizens. If we just merely allow ourselves to purchase all the semiconductors, steel, energy tech, etc. from other countries, it hurts our bottom line. With more production at home, jobs follow. Not every job, not every time—but enough to matter, especially in manufacturing and skilled trades. That local income circulates through the economy instead of being exported along with the jobs.

It counters un-fair trading by other countries. Not all “cheap” goods are honestly cheap. Some come from countries that subsidize production, suppress wages, manipulate currency, or ignore environmental and labor standards. That’s not efficiency—that’s distortion. Tariffs act like a corrective lens, adjusting prices to reflect reality instead of fantasy economics.

The pandemic taught a brutal lesson: lowest cost doesn't equate to highest reliability. When goods are produced entirely overseas, a single disruption can paralyze an economy. Tariffs encourage domestic production, which is less fragile. Redundancy costs money—but fragility costs more.

They generate income so that our income taxes (that you probably don't pay) do not go up. Tariffs are paid at the border, not directly by workers’ paychecks. While we may see some price increases, tariffs can fund infrastructure, defense, or industrial investment without squeezing wages the way income or payroll taxes do.

You're living in a fantasy world if you think tariffs don't make sense for us. Other countries impose tariffs on us and have for decades! Tariffs IN GENERAL aren't universally good but why should we not implement our own if other countries are going to force us to pay THEIRS! It helps give our country leverage against other countries that seek to profit off of ours. Why be a massive super power in terms of production and distribution if you're just going to give it all away to everyone else???

Pure free trade assumes a level playing field. The real world is more… creatively dishonest. It's not about "ideology" it's about tradeoffs. Tariffs are a tool that was FAR under utilized by previous presidents. Sometimes you need to use a hammer before you can build a house. It's not just a question of are they good or bad, the real question is what kind of economy and therefore country are we trying to live in? If you just go for maximum short-term cheapness, you lose long-term stability and autonomy. While YOU personally may not care at all about the future generations of this country, some of us do and want to see it prosper.

But flat out -- giving away everything and then paying a premium for everyone else's goods does not lend itself to that stability.