I'm not one of the economists that knee jerk reject protectionism, but I don't think it would help that much either. Trading partners won't accept tariffs without reciprocating. The US might be big enough now to get away with this to some degree, but that won't last forever, and tariffs would probably accelerate that reduction in influence.

I'm all for tariffs when there is some other goal that makes sense (for example I think tariffs should bake in the cost of environmental or other regulatory compliance we have that the foreign trading partner does not).