No, this is the part you are not getting. Devastation occurs because local businesses become both non-competitive and expensive (for prices can rise up to the tariffs and more), and before markets are re-opened, which is done indeed to allow the economy to come back to life and correct the damage protectionism caused. I'm not theorizing, I'm not making assumptions based on something I was told, I'm telling you exactly how it works from within, because I'm living it.

Trump will not apply tariffs because that will blow up the economy. He is blandishing that possibility as a weapon to actually negotiate free-trade treatises, as with Argentina right now, and China soon.