The United States national government, has in modern times consistently been running massive budget deficits, of which, those deficits could at least be partially addressed if current policies were replaced or augmented with those policies specifically created to help reduce those deficits. In addition, even as a young nation, this country understood that to permit foreign goods to simply be shipped to America, without asserting some sort of duty or applying some sort of tonnage levy or some sort of limitation in regards to those goods, that this would be wholly unfair to domestic industries, as well as to domestic employment, and thereby to the continuing strength of this emerging nation, in whole.
In today's world, tariffs are negotiable in a myriad of ways, of which, it makes far more sense for those tariffs as being negotiated to take into full account, that this country has an abiding interest first and foremost in protecting and defending its own industries and employment, first and always, over everything else. Sure, it does make economic sense to permit the importing of those goods that are of a lower cost or that are not readily available, so as to be of benefit for those consumers of such, but this has to be tempered with taking into account domestic industries and the employment of domestic labor, of which, it is unfair to expect those that are employed domestically to be able to compete successfully against those countries that lack robust rules and regulations that fairly deal with labor, the environment, and safety of those so employed. Further to the point, the sheer amount of goods being imported into America, does not lend itself to a thorough inspection of all those goods, so that, in interests of efficiency, the inspection of goods, could be augmented by the application of a tonnage levy of all goods coming into America, of which, different points of origin as well as different categories of goods, would be subjected to a different tonnage levy.
Also, when it comes to potential sources of revenue, as reported by Wikipedia.org, we read that "The federal government owns about 640 million acres of land in the United States, about 28% of the total land area." This is a substantial amount of land ownership, of which no other private party, or multinational or any other single institution, comes close to owning the amount of land that this national government so owns. So too, it is in the development of that land, that revenues by those that own or lease such, help to ensure that this country remains vibrant, growing, and powerful, as opposed to such nationally owned land, simply laying dormant, or being underutilized for the good purposes it could be developed into.
This country has an absolute duty first and foremost to its citizens, to protect and to defend them, and of which one of those protections, is to do whatever is possible and sensible to maintain the strength of its own people, by first supporting and augmenting its own domestic industries, at the expense, if it so be, of foreign industries and foreign employment. After all, it is not fair, to expect that domestic employers can successfully compete over the long term against cheap and exploited foreign labor, so that, tariffs, tonnage levies and anti-dumping laws should be applied where it is sensible by that national government to do so. Additionally, federal lands which are of interest to private parties and domestic corporations, should more often be sold or lease to such, so as to strengthen American interests further.