Yeah, but the tariffs only provoked any growth because companies rushed to stock up on supplies before the tariffs went into effect, anticipating that the comin

Yeah, but the tariffs only provoked any growth because companies rushed to stock up on supplies before the tariffs went into effect, anticipating that the coming price increase would decrease profitability and potentially destroy specific supply chains. Tariffs can't produce any net growth, they can just juice short term growth at the expense of long term growth, and they can produce localized growth (ie for US steelmakers) at the expense of the broad domestic sector (ie all US manufacturers that use steel). In general, tariffs are an own-goal. Trump had to implement new subsidies for US agricultural firms on the order of tens of billions of dollars annually (and has cost more than twice what Obama's big three automaker bailout cost) to prevent the collapse of US ag that lost a ton of export business because of the tariffs. If we could get China to stop stealing US intellectual property, perhaps the tariffs would be worthwhile, but there is a zero percent chance that will happen. Tariffs are just bad economic policy.