Most Americans Hate Trump’s Tariffs

President Donald Trump was reelected, in large part, because voters trusted he would improve the economy. Now public confidence in Trump’s economic plan is slipping.

In April 2025, an NPR/PBS News/Marist poll found that 55 percent of Americans disapproved of how Trump was handling the economy, while only 39 percent approved. The latest edition of the poll, published Thursday, found that 59 percent of Americans now disapprove of Trump’s economic policies, and 56 percent say his tariffs hurt the economy. The data are even more telling when broken down by partisan and educational demographics.

It comes as no surprise that a supermajority of Democrats (87 percent) consider tariffs harmful to the national economy—not only are they empirically correct, but they have partisan motives for believing their rival party’s policies are counterproductive. On the flip side, the finding that 66 percent of Republicans believe tariffs benefit the economy is also to be expected—they have partisan motives for denying the economic reality that tariffs have hurt the economy; inflation is high, and unemployment is up.

It’s with independents, who make up nearly half of all voters, that we begin to see just how unpopular Trump’s handling of the economy is. In April 2025, 59 percent of independents disapproved of Trump’s handling of the economy. Now, 66 percent disapprove. Even more telling is how white men without college degrees, a key voting constituency for Trump, feel about his economic policies. Last April, 52 percent of this demographic approved of his economic performance. Now, 51 percent either disapprove or are unsure.

Attitudes toward the president’s tariffs tell a more damning story for Trump and the GOP.

In April 2025, white men who are not college-educated were evenly split about Trump’s handling of tariffs, with 47 percent approving and 47 percent disapproving. In the latest survey, 46 percent of this demographic say that placing tariffs or fees on imported products hurts the U.S. economy, while only 41 percent say that doing so helps it.

Given Republicans’ razor-thin majority in the House of Representatives and how important lowering prices is to Americans, one would hope that these results would be enough to convince the GOP to stop supporting Trump’s economic plan. Political considerations aside, there are plenty of apolitical reasons why Republicans should rebuff Trump’s clearly unconstitutional and predictably harmful tariffs that have failed to achieve their stated goals.

Luckily for Americans, the Supreme Court could soon strike down the president’s trade policies. But even if that happens, it doesn’t change the fact that the GOP should never have supported them in the first place.