The premise behind free trade is simple. Competencies.
If production of certain goods transfer from one country to another, it just means that the incumbent nation did not have the competencies to remain competitive in the global market.
Idiots who believed that establishing tariffs would protect domestic production are attacking a symptom of non-competitiveness and not the root cause of industry departure.
If people are truly concerned about retaining jobs they should be supporting universal higher levels of education, universal access to skill training, SME growth and an aggressive policy of innovation.
Setting up tariffs to encourage the growth of low value production US based sweat shops is stupid and inefficient.
overspecialization at the nation state level can create fragilities, when other nations have competing political systems you often don't see eye to eye. Even if it's less 'efficient' in the short run it might be worth having redundancies and self sufficiency. Plus as a huge importer why not replace some income taxes with tariffs. Income taxes might be more destructive long term
Also does 'universal' mean theft from the taxpayer?