Trump’s Trickle-Down Tariff Problem

The supposed benefits of high tariffs are far more distant and less visible to voters than those of tax cuts.

T here are many reasons why Donald Trump and Republicans have had persistently low approval ratings since last spring — which have translated into defeats in 2025 and in many special elections — and now face a potentially grisly midterm election season. The most obvious cause is voter discontent at the cost of living. There’s a harsh irony here, because the proponents of raising tariffs have made exactly the same mistake they once claimed adherents of the pre-Trump Republican economic orthodoxy made.

How We Got More Trump

Rarely have we seen a presidency that charged headlong so quickly in the opposite direction from what got the president elected in the first place as Trump deciding on a course of action with the direct and immediate aim and effect of raising consumer prices. Which is exactly what high tariffs do, and were expected to do.

Exit polls made clear how much Trump owed his 2024 victory to the Biden administration’s troubles with inflation and the economy, which of course were exacerbated by the Democrats’ visibly pursuing inflationary policies. Trump was more trusted than Kamala Harris to handle the economy, by 53 percent to 46 percent, and all but a small share of voters picked the candidate they trusted more on that issue. The 47 percent of voters who said their family financial situation was worse than in 2020 broke 82 percent to 16 percent for Trump, while Harris won overwhelmingly among those who said it was the same or better. Among the 68 percent of voters who thought the national economy was not doing well, Trump won by six points (52 percent to 46 percent) among the 35 percent who said it was in “not so good” shape, and by 78 points among the 33 percent who said it was in poor shape. Trump won 51 percent of the vote among voters making less than $100,000 a year; Harris won 51 percent among those making $100,000 or more.

Specific to inflation, less than a quarter of voters said they had suffered no hardship from inflation in the past year, and Harris won those voters by an overwhelming 78 percent to 21 percent margin. But a majority (53 percent) said they had suffered moderate hardship from inflation, and Trump carried those voters by six points (52 percent to 46 percent). He won by 53 points (76 percent to 23 percent) among those who said they had suffered “severe hardship.” In other words, fully 75 percent of the voters said that inflation had hurt them in 2024, and Trump carried that supermajority group 60 percent to 40 percent.

The economy was named as the top issue by 32 percent of voters, second only to “democracy.” But it was by far the top issue among Trump voters. Harris won by 62 points among the voters who named democracy as their top issue, and by 52 points among those who named abortion. Trump won by 63 points (81 percent to 18 percent) among those who cited the economy, 80 points among those who cited immigration, and 17 points among those who cited foreign policy. But while it would be foolish to dismiss immigration as one key component of Trump’s victory, twice as many voters named the economy as immigration and foreign policy put together.

The Hard Numbers

The overall polling picture confirms both Trump’s poor standing and its most direct cause. Looking at the RealClearPolitics poll average (whose trend lines are broadly consistent with those of other poll aggregators), Trump’s approval rating at this writing is 40.5 percent approval and 56.4 percent disapproval. That’s a long way down from his popular-vote victory in 2024 and his honeymoon approval rating of 50.5 percent approval, 44.5 percent disapproval a week after his inauguration. While national polls have historically tended to understate Trump’s support and to some extent that of his party during the Trump era, the record of the past ten years of elections suggests that the polling averages correlate pretty well with the trends and rarely understate Republican support by more than about two points on net. We can debate how accurate the polls are likely to be, and it’s still six months to Election Day, but simply waving them away as “fake news” is whistling past the graveyard.

Trump’s approval rating fell below his disapproval rating on March 13, 2025, and has never recovered. By the end of April 2025, he was seven points underwater. That deficit hit double digits in November 2025 and was last below double digits on January 12, 2026.

When we look at issue polling, Trump is underwater on every issue for which RCP tracks a poll average. But the anchors dragging him down are the economy and inflation, on which he is much more unpopular than on immigration or foreign policy:

The timeline of when the wheels started to come off is consistent with the early and repeated emphasis by Trump and his administration on a major tariff push. Major tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China were announced at the start of February 2025. These were the subject of executive orders implemented by U.S. Customs and Border Protection on March 4 and 7. Global 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum, announced in February, were imposed on March 12. By early March, the administration was openly headed for the global tariffs announced on “liberation day,” April 2. By March 13, 2025, Trump was polling worse on the economy than at any point in his first term.

The stock markets took a big tumble on tariff fears around March 10 and again on the eve of “liberation day.” They began to recover when Trump signaled a climbdown on the most sweeping tariffs around April 23, which also coincided with a partial rally in his approval ratings between April 27 (7.1 points underwater) and May 21 (1.9 points). Trump also enjoyed a modest rally between February 23, 2026 (13.4 points underwater) and March 8 (10.6 points), on the heels of Learning Resources Inc. v. Trump, the February 20 Supreme Court decision striking down the bulk of his tariffs.

Tariffs are by no means the only event in this timeline. The early months of the administration were also consumed with controversies over the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Trump’s approval rating improved a few points in the weeks after Operation Midnight Hammer, the June 22, 2025, strikes on Iran. The same thing was underway after the January 3, 2026, raid on Venezuela, but there was another negative spike around the deployment of ICE to Minneapolis and the fatal shootings of Renee Good on January 7 and Alex Pretti on January 24. And further drift has happened during the current war with Iran, although that, too, is entangled with its effect on oil prices and a broader sense — already baked into public perceptions over a year ago — that Trump has his eye off the ball of getting prices down.

Voters Don’t Love Tariffs

Undoubtedly, some voters who are unhappy with prices and the economy are nonetheless believers in higher tariffs. But nothing in the tariff-specific polling suggests that tariffs are widely popular, or indeed that they poll better than the Trump economic agenda and performance as a whole.

Consider a sample of the polling on tariffs just since the start of 2026, mostly before but in a few cases after the Learning Resources decision. Several of these polls are slightly more favorable to tariff policy than their previous findings in 2025, but they all reflect a stable majority against the policy, and several of them show that voters who intensely oppose the tariffs well outnumber those who strongly support them:

• Council on Foreign Relations/Morning Consult online, January 7–8, 2026: Asked how trade affected the prices they pay for seven categories of goods, at least two-thirds of voters said yes in each category, ranging from 67 percent who said they affected the cost of childcare to 83 percent for food and groceries and 79 percent for technology and electronics, with at least 50 percent saying that tariffs had a “major impact” on prices in these two categories. Even granting that this was a poll framed to get people thinking in terms of an effect of trade as a whole on prices, the uniformity is striking: 68 percent of Republicans said trade affects medical expenses, and 81 percent said that it affects food prices.
• AP-NORC, January 8–11: On “imposing new tariffs on other countries,” 58 percent said Trump had gone too far, 30 percent said he was about right, and 10 percent said he hadn’t gone far enough.
• CNN/SSRS, January 9–12: Sixty-two percent disapprove of Trump’s handling of tariffs, compared to 37 percent who approve. Also, among voters who approve of Trump’s job performance, 17 percent disapprove of Trump’s handling of tariffs, and 26 percent cite immigration as the most important reason they approve of Trump, while only 2 percent cite tariffs and trade.
• Impact/Wall Street Journal, January 8–13: Fifty-four percent disapprove of Trump tariff policy, including 46 percent who “strongly disapprove.” By contrast, 44 percent approve, of whom 29 percent strongly approve.
• New York Times/Siena, January 12–17: Fifty-five percent oppose Trump tariffs, including 45 percent who strongly oppose; 38 percent support, including 25 percent who strongly support.
• Pew, January 20–26: Sixty percent disapprove of Trump tariffs, including 39 percent who strongly disapprove; 37 percent approve, including just 13 percent who strongly approve. Even 28 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents disapprove. Fifty-two percent of adults expect the policies to have a mostly negative effect on themselves (compared with 19 percent who expect a positive effect), and 51 percent expect a negative effect on the country (compared with 25 percent who expect a positive effect).
• Fox News, January 23–26: “63% of registered voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of tariffs, while 37% approve, a 26-point deficit that ranks trade among his weakest-performing issues.” Notably, the poll shows that his approval rating on tariffs and on inflation is almost identical.
• Marquette Law, January 21–28: Fifty-six percent say that tariffs hurt the U.S. economy, while only 30 percent say they help. Also, 63 percent wanted the Supreme Court to limit Trump’s tariff authority, while 36 percent wanted his tariff authority upheld.
• ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos, February 12–17: Sixty-four percent disapprove of Trump’s handling of tariffs, compared to 34 percent who approve; again, his approval ratings on inflation are nearly identical. Seventy-two percent of independents disapprove, while only 75 percent of Republicans approve.
• Economist/YouGov, February 20–23: Seventy-one percent say that Trump’s tariffs increased the prices they pay, including 43 percent who say they increased prices a lot. Forty-seven percent wanted tariffs decreased, compared with 37 percent who wanted them increased or held steady; 51 percent of independents and 19 percent of Republicans wanted them decreased. Fifty-seven percent approve of the Learning Resources decision, including 59 percent of independents, 51 percent of self-identified “Non-MAGA Republicans,” and even 18 percent of MAGA Republicans.
• Fox News, February 28–March 2: Sixty-three percent disapprove of Trump’s job performance on tariffs, while 36 percent approve. Sixty-seven percent disapprove on the cost of living, while 32 percent approve. Fifty-three percent of those who oppose tariffs cite increased consumer cost as the main reason. The poll is full of flashing warning signs: “Compared to a year ago, most say grocery prices have increased (81%), including more than half who say they are up a lot (56%). Large numbers also say costs have increased for utilities (79%), healthcare (71%), housing (65%) and gas (51%),” only 30 percent give positive ratings to the economy, and “half of voters identify the cost of living (50%) as the most important economic issue facing the country, far ahead of government spending (18%), jobs (10%), income inequality (9%), tariffs (8%) and taxes (4%).” A staggering 78 percent of independents in the poll say Trump is focused on the wrong things.
• YouGov, March 20–24: Seventy-one percent say that tariffs increase prices; only 3 percent say they reduce prices. By contrast, only 28 percent say that higher tariffs increase domestic manufacturing. Fifty-eight percent say tariffs hurt the economy, while 25 percent say they have helped. Fifty-five percent blame tariffs a lot for inflation, and 31 percent blame them a little. Sixty percent say the costs of tariffs are mostly borne by Americans and American companies. Fifty percent say that tariffs do more to hurt people in the U.S. than help them (including 36 percent who say they do a lot more to hurt), compared to 19 percent who say they do more to help.

The Trickle-Down Problem

Now, it’s generally the case that voters are much more interested in economic results than in economic policies. But this just gets us back to where protectionist tariffs fail one of the most basic lessons of populist politics.

Populists have long argued that Trump has succeeded where previous Republicans failed, in part because he grasped that political wins should be visible and visceral. As I explained in 2021:

In this telling, Republican policy proposals lost their tether to Earth. Leaders such as Paul Ryan talked about budget deficits and entitlement and spending cuts that were fiscally responsible at the macro level, but were of no interest to ordinary voters. . . . The mismatch between the promises and the realities left them to explain to the folks back home that, “Hey, at least we reduced the rate of growth of spending below what the other side wanted,” a claim that the average voter had no means to assess. . . . Trump came fresh into Republican politics, knowing nothing of the arguments and battles that came before him; he did not speak the language and had not read the white papers or the founding texts. What he grasped were the things simple enough that voters could see and feel, and then he discarded the rest.

The same is true in foreign policy, which is why I have argued that victories need to be visible. By contrast, as the Democrats learned to their sorrow under Biden, when voters see and feel that the cost of living is too high, you can’t talk them out of it.

As far back as 2017, I argued that an economic policy agenda responsive to these kinds of concerns should acknowledge that supply-side pro-growth policies needed to be coupled with more visible and direct accomplishments on the cost of living:

A message built around job creation via supply-side tax cuts has its virtues, but in the second decade of the 21st century, it strikes many voters as outdated and disconnected from their kitchen-table concerns. Republicans should not banish pro-growth, supply-side solutions from their tool kit, but it is past time for them to recognize that the best economic message in today’s climate is that the GOP will deliver a lower cost of living than the Democrats will. . . . A cost-of-living agenda dovetails well with Republican lawmakers’ increasing reliance on working-class voters, many of whom are skeptical of the indirect benefits that may someday accrue, thanks to GOP policies, when their employers hire more workers and offer higher wages and salaries.

For a century, left-leaning critics have sneered that Republican economic policies amounted to “trickle-down economics,” in which the ordinary voter had to await the indirect action of tax and regulatory benefits to the wealthy and big corporations in order to see that the rich people and the big companies were creating more jobs and better wages for workers and more goods and lower prices for consumers. Right-populists have at times echoed those sneers. And yet, they have marched the party directly into the very box canyon they warned about. And worse: At least when you pass something like the Reagan or George W. Bush tax cuts, everybody can see their taxes go down, even if they suspect that the rich are getting a much better deal.

But with high tariffs, the pain is immediate and visible: The president is trying to raise prices, and when prices seem too high, he’s the obvious guy to blame. Even voters who aren’t specifically angry about tariffs aren’t sold that they are producing great economic benefits to make the interlude of higher prices justifiable. Even voters who don’t think that tariffs are the problem are still grumbling that the president seems to have the wrong priorities, when huge numbers of them want him laser-focused on the cost of living.

The pro-tariff populists have forgotten their own advice, and they may well be leading Republicans to ruin as a result. Voters aren’t buying what they’re selling, because they don’t like the price tag.