I don't understand why you think tariffs are likely to create a net positive in American jobs. That certainly has not been the case so far, and would have been even worse without the US government now using taxes to subsidize businesses that the tariffs are screwing over.

If curbing China's loose interpretation of intellection property rights was a goal, then withdrawing from the TPP makes zero sense, because a huge portion of the deal was limiting Chinese trade influence in the rest of Asia and providing a coalition to combat Chinese IP theft.

We passed up a strategy that had a good chance of resulting in a checkmate for one where we're sacrificing knights and bishops to take pawns. Or at this point, maybe we've enabled friendly fire for chess somehow and are now taking our own pawns. Like I said before: None of this makes sense. Actual economists are baffled.

To be fair I don't think Trump is particularly adept, but I'm still not convinced tariffs are a bad idea in the long-term. China does all sorts of things to prop up Chinese companies and I see no reason why America shouldn't be looking to do the same.