A few more singed firemen is a small price to pay for the possibility that a domestic firm might deign to make a fabric already supplied by foreign companies. Tariffs are not merely a slight nuisance imposed by government clerks at the national borders. So far as foreigners are concerned it only indirectly affects their freedom to trade with that particular country, while to citizens of that country it is a direct curtailment of the freedom to trade with all the world. Since practically no one can make all the things he wears, eats, and uses, a person's living standard and opportunity in life depend largely on his opportunities for trading the product of his labor with others. Pervasive trade barriers effectively force people to use inferior building blocks for their life.
Trade barriers are an attempt by politicians to control the market.
And politicians cannot control the market without commanding everyone who must rely on that market. If the government prohibited Americans from corresponding with citizens in the rest of the world, no one would deny that citizens' liberties had been trampled. The Soviet Union sought to protect the ruling class from competition from political ideas from abroad, while the United States sought to protect politically dominant industries from competition from foreign products. Freedom of choice is as important in how one lives as in what one reads. Either the government has a valid moral reason for restricting one citizen's freedom in order to boost another citizen's profits, or a trade barrier is unjust.