Hmmm. WSJ doesn't like 'em. Maybe there's more to the story?-----A modest defense of tariffs - by Glenn K Beaton

From publications like The Wall Street Journal, you might conclude that tariffs as an economics practice is in the same category as piracy, slavery and child labor, but worse. - Glenn K Beaton

• In the spirit of Protestantism and economics contrarianism, let me offer a defense of this much-maligned practice. 

At the outset, I’ll stipulate to some things.
First, it’s true that tariffs are much like a sales tax. 

Adding a tariff to imported goods tends to raise the price of those goods, just as we saw a few years ago that adding a sales tax on Amazon goods adds to the check-out price of those goods.
If the U.S. government slaps a 10% tariff on, for example, imported steel, it’s logical to expect the price of imported steel to the U.S. consumer to rise about 10%.

• But that’s not always the case, because, while tariffs are much like sales taxes, they aren’t exactly the same. 
• A tariff applies not to all goods, but to specific goods – ones that are imported from overseas and specifically designated for the tariff...