[ijpsud]

> they make it even harder for Europe to ever catch up

You've stated this as a fact, but it's not self-evident. There are obviously cases where some degree of "protectionism" makes sense. For example, you probably wouldn't want to let yourself get into a situation where another country supplies 100% of your food, if you could help it. As an extreme case, if you can produce all your food locally and it only makes your food 1% more expensive (than the tariff-less case), that's very likely a great trade-off.

Some degree of protectionism can make sense in certain circumstances. I'm not claiming it necessarily makes sense in this case (could very well be a terrible idea), but I think you'd need some evidence or reasoning behind the claim that it's definitely a bad thing for Europe.