I've had some issues with AFICs in the past, and one quick thing you should check (which ended up being my problem):
Is the insulation on the wire coming into the outlet box pinched and causing a loose/flaky connection? That will still give power to the outlet (under a normal breaker) and won't trip a normal breaker, but it'll drive an AFCI nuts.
Another technique you can try to debug this is by swapping in a GFCI breaker, and see if that trips too. If the GFCI trips, it's a grounding problem. If it only trips on the AFCI, then there's arcing somewhere along the circuit. Check junction boxes, the outlet boxes and the connections to the plugs in the boxes.
Happy & Safe Debugging!
Surge protectors and circuit breakers both cut off power during exceptional conditions, but they have different purposes and react to different events:
Circuit breakers
Circuit breakers have only one job: to prevent the wiring inside your house from catching on fire. That's it, they do nothing else. They don't protect you from shocking yourself, or from lightning, or from your cat chewing through a power cord.
Circuit breakers work by monitoring the current (number of electrons) flowing through the wiring, and cutting off the power if the current is too high for too long (which puts the wiring in your house at risk of overheating). The higher the current, the quicker a breaker will trip: it may be just a split second or it might be hours. The idea is that a transient burst of power (e.g. when your fridge turns on) is not particularly dangerous.
The rating of a breaker depends only on the size and type of wire used in your house (which in turn is based on the expected usage). Typical sizes would be 15 or 20 amps for outlets and standard lighting, and higher, dedicated breakers for high-use appliances like stoves or hot water heaters.
Surge Protectors
Surge protectors have a very different goal: to quickly disconnect equipment from the power supply if there is a power surge. Surge protectors don't monitor the quantity of electricity, but rather it's voltage. An unexpectedly high voltage can force power into appliances beyond their specifications. Typically surge protectors cut off power when the voltage reaches 300V or 400V, which may be indicative of a lightning strike.
Surge protectors also have the job of absorbing energy due to a voltage spike.
Neither surge protectors nor circuit breakers do anything to regular minor fluctuations in voltage like a brownout.
In my opinion the need for surge protectors is somewhat overblown, since harmful power surges are relatively rare and there's no guarantee that a surge protector will be robust enough to prevent damage anyways. But they are convenient if you need extra outlets.
EDIT
@Ecnerwal's answer is correct that technically surge protectors don't disconnect the power, they redirect (or absorb) it. And his answer has much more technical detail about the types and purposes of surge protectors.
Best Answer
No, a surge protector is not rated as a PDU or subpanel.
Your concept does not work. You can't use a "power strip" with an onboard snap breaker as a substitute for a proper 15A circuit and breaker in the panel. Not least, those 50 cent "breakers" are hokey-dokey compared to the real dual-mode things in your panel.
You can still do it, for other reasons
Given that you're doing everything with plug-in appliances and not doing anything with wiring in the walls, you are fine with doing that. The WiFi switch (assuming it is UL listed; that's a big "if" for anything mail-order) only needs to be ready to handle normal current from the appliance. UL has supervised its design and torture-tested it plugged into breakers as large as 20A. UL has assured the design will not catch fire before the 20A breaker trips.
UL tests "NEMA 5-15" (15A socket) things to 20A, because an NEC rule is that 15A receptacles are allowed on 20A circuits, and UL itself requires that 15A receptacles be certified for a 20A pass-through.
This is the only case where NEC and UL allow mismatched breakers to sockets. In all other cases, breaker, socket and load must exactly match. (noting that 40A sockets are not a thing; therefore 40A circuits use 50A sockets).