Tariff
A tariff is a tax on imports or exports between sovereign states. It is a form of regulation of foreign trade. It is a policy that taxes foreign products to encourage or protect domestic industry. It helps limit trade deficits. The tariff is historically used to protect infant industries and to allow import substitution industrialization.
Tariff of 1789
In its final form, the tariff erected "an American navigation system," superseding the individual state sanctioned fees designed to protect domestic shipping during the Articles of Confederation period from 1781 to 1789.
The act established tonnage rates favorable to American carriers by charging them lower cargo fees than those imposed on foreign boats importing similar goods. Coastal trade was reserved exclusively for American flag vessels. These provisions were consistent with mercantilist policies practice by European powers at the time.
Dating from the Treaty of Paris, ending the War for Independence in 1783, Great Britain had declined to seek a commercial treaty with the United States. In addition, provisions of the treaty had gone unfulfilled, including compensation to slaveholders for slaves emancipated by the British Navy during the War and the failure to abandon military posts in the Northwest Territory. Still, Great Britain remained the dominant trading partner for the United States, the countries reverting to an essentially colonial-era trade relationship. 
Representative James Madison, presiding over the tariff debates in Congress, attempted to introduce discriminatory provisions into the tonnage legislation that would favor France and its colonial possessions and shift American trade away from Great Britain.
To effect this, Madison called for a 60¢ per ton fee upon foreign carriers lacking a commercial agreement with the United States, while France, which possessed a treaty, would be charged tonnage at 30¢. This measure alone "was equivalent to levying economic war" upon Great Britain.
Madison's proposals were intended to unify politically the agricultural and manufacturing interests in support of that commercial realignment at the national level, damaging to Great Britain and beneficial to revolutionary France.
Many representatives of northern business were wary of abandoning Great Britain as their primary trading partner and merchant marine and questioned whether France could ever act "as the principle supplier and market for the United States." 
The House of Representatives, nevertheless, initially passed Madison's "controversial" legislation, with the discriminatory provision intact. The Senate, however, removed it from the bill and sent it back to the House, where it was passed, without amendment, 31 to 19, on July 4, 1789.
The Tariff of 1789 placed France and Great Britain on an equal footing with regard to shipping, manufactures, and raw products delivered to American ports. All foreign-owned or foreign-built ships paid 50¢ per ton duty; American-owned vessels were charged 6¢ per ton.