doesn't mean that we aren't worse off today because of the tariffs.

Tariffs artificially prop up certain industries at the expense of the economy as a whole. The reason people fight so hard for tariffs is because the benefits are felt by a small group of people who are passionate about it, but the cost is spread out over the whole population. So for example you might save 1000 steel jobs but the cost to everyone else might only be $20. Those 1000 people earning 60k per year are going to fight to keep their job, but the rest of us won't mobilize to stop a $20 increase. Problem is in most cases with tariffs it actually ends up costing the economy far more than what it would cost to simply pay off the effected workers. It literally makes more economic sense to tax everyone and pay off the effected workers in most cases, the cost to the economy would be far less.

Tariffs are a give away to particular interest groups, and they are an inefficient way of doing it, but they are easier to excuse politically than a direct transfer of taxpayer money would be. But in essence that is what tariffs are, a transfer from the population at large to a particular interest group, at a terribly inefficient rate. I've seen some estimates where the cost to the economy can be 5-10x the benefits the particular interest group receives, and in some cases even worse than that.