Tariffs, as with taxes, may serve positive, market-favourable functions, particularly in addressing market failures, uneven regulation (e.g., higher pension, safety, environmental, and/or medical-care burdens in the importing country), as well as anti-dumping or anti-interference actions. British-Korean economist Ha-Joon Chang writes of this, particularly in Kicking Away the Ladder:

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ha-Joon_Chang#Kicking_Away_the...>

Recent US tariffs fall rather short on most of these points, of course.