You can't have free trade and a tariff war. The latter cannot lead to the former. Protectionism is a flawed concept. In fact, the only way to free trade is by unilateral deregulation. Tariffs punish the citizenry of countries imposing them more than they punish others.
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Unilateral deregulation is a unicorn, and not a guarantee of free trade. Without regulation, all free trade systems will eventually devolve to monopoly. This is just human nature... nobody involved in trade actually wants free trade, they want to be on top.
That is a false assumption. Monopolies are only possible with government protection, because bureaucratic bloat kills them. With regulation, we get cartels and regulatory capture. Freedom is not a bogeyman and markets trend to equilibrium absent state intervention and force
There is no such thing as a market that's free of state intervention and force. Your imagined trend toward equilibrium is nothing but a dream.
200 years ago, people thought there was no such thing as an economy free of chattel slavery. You are not really making any arguments aside from appeals to the status quo.
200 years ago, most of the world had already outlawed chattel slavery.