Aren't subsidies better then tariffs?

I'm kinda sympathetic to the idea of retaining a certain level of manufacturing for national security reasons (like steel). But using tariffs for this seems horrible because everyone who uses tariffed goods as inputs is bearing the price increase for that and this could reduce other manufacturing jobs.

Why not just subsidize those industries? When the cost of manufacturing in the US gets off set with tax money then the Government can directly control who is paying for retaining this industry by adjusting the tax code. The biggest winners in the economy can afford to pay a bit more for national security, because they are also the biggest beneficiary of said national security.

Instead with tariffs random consumers and other manufacturing companies have to pay for that which doesn't seem economically or fair.

But I guess all that doesn't matter because Trump has somehow convinced the public that tariffs is just taking money from foreign nations for free.