Tariffs are to protect a local industry and noncompetitive culture and/or poorly mismanaged economy where comestibles and housing are disproportionately priced due to exploitation and gross mismanagement. It is also a military protection. The front line of the peace time battle front is the growth of an economy both in total and in tandem with industrial capacity. The Soviet Union was defeated when it was completely uncompetitive at economic growth. The move to a venture capital based economy grew the West far faster than the USSR could keep up.
If any country relies solely on the imported industrial capacity of another region, they are extremely vulnerable to hostilities from said region or other outside influences.
Another region may normalize labor abuses, or may have a far better managed form of housing and comestibles that makes the life of its populous far cheaper than your region. The west has never had substantial land reforms in over a century in most places. The population has redistributed and grown, while a lack of effective policies has allowed massive inflation of the price of goods and housing to the point of a completely noncompetitive labor force in places capable of addressing these fundamental issues effectively. Additionally, much of the West failed to design infrastructure with long term sustainability in mind. The vast majority of that infrastructure is now an untenable hemorrhaging patchwork of hacks and rot that is impossible to replace and impossible to service.
So these places must inflate the cost of outside products to account for their own deficiency, and try to use that money to bring themselves back to parity — in a perfect world, but most are unaware and so fail to hold their governments accountable with these funds, never righting the wrong.