This line confused me. Show you how tariffs allow government to pick winners and losers, ie which middle class jobs are available? That's Tariff 101. They protect an industry (steel makers). That industry will then hire more workers. Earnings for the steel companies and hiring of steel employees, means the price of steel will go up. Steel prices going up devastates end users of steel (car manufacturers, household good manufacturers, and so on and so on) in America, meaning foreign end users of steel (their steel prices did not go up) can now sell their products for less than American businesses. That's the definition of government interference.
Not an easy or easy to hear answer to this problem, but it's not a new problem. Technology changes, behavior changes, markets change. Towns, areas, industries shouldn't just sit back and wait for the government to bring back their golden goose. Pittsburgh moved on and is flourishing. Check out Mobile, AL; Greenville, SC; Asheville, NC, etc, etc, etc. Change happens.
We already know how this turns out.
I will never in a million years understand this logic. We want to have equal purchasing power with other countries? F that. I'll take being the bad *** country that buys what everyone else makes.