Are you sure you're not mixing up tariffs and subsidies? Subsidies _are_ welfare - the government collects tax revenue and gives it to corporations. Tariffs are taxes imposed on imported goods. EvilEndures's argument (seems to be) that when you impose taxes on imported goods, exporters stop or reduce exportation (which is true, that's the point of tariffs after all) so that buyers are forced to buy through domestic manufacturers. The chain of causation there is pretty fragile, but that's _still_ not comparable to welfare where your money is forcibly redistributed - you were going to buy _x_ anyway, but you end up buying it for possibly a bit more money from a domestic supplier rather than a foreign one. It's not a good idea and it doesn't work to stimulate the economy the way its supporters want it to, but it's still pretty far from "welfare" in any common definition of the term, corporate or otherwise.