"[And] as Frederic Bastiat put it, it makes no more sense to be protectionist because other countries have tariffs than it would to block up our harbors because other countries have rocky coasts."
That's an excellent equilibrium analysis, and I completely agree with it. In the short run, treating protectionism as constant, retaliatory trade restrictions will harm the US as well as China.
The only flaw in that reasoning is that it treats tariffs as being unchangeable. China and other countries have eliminated protectionist policies in response to retaliation. As far as I know, no coast has even become less rocky in response to a blockaded harbor.
