TARIFF POLL: Survey Reveals How Voters Feel About Trump Tariffs—& Perhaps Partly Why He Issued Pause

2 days ago

On "Forbes Newsroom," HarrisX Founder and CEO Dritan Nesho discussed a new poll showing how voters feel about President Trump's tariffs, which may partly explain why the President issued a shock 90-day pause to most of them.

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00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis, a breaking news reporter here at Forbes. Joining me now

00:07is Harris X founder and CEO Driton Esho. Driton, thank you so much for joining me.

00:12Great to be back. Thanks for having me.

00:14I think really what can only be described as tariff whiplash has happened in the past week.

00:20So I do want to go through a loose timeline in case anyone blinked and missed it. So first,

00:26April 2nd was dubbed Liberation Day by President Trump. That's when he unveiled his sweeping tariff

00:32policy. The market reaction was swift. Trillions was lost globally, stocks plunged, trade wars

00:38escalated, and fears of a recession dramatically increased. They officially went into effect

00:44after the clock struck midnight on Wednesday. And by Wednesday afternoon, President Trump announced

00:49a pause on most of the tariffs. A 10% baseline tariff though has remained. And then he ratcheted

00:55up the trade war with China. So I want to talk about, you have some numbers of Trump's approval

01:01and where it stood after the tariff announcement. What can you tell us?

01:06Well, there were a lot of signs, hazard signs, I would call them, that were flashing bright yellow and

01:14again, beginning to flash red. And it wasn't just the signal and the message that the bond markets

01:22sent to the President, that investors were really pulling out of those bond markets even for safety.

01:30And major holders of US debt, like Japan, were doing the same. But really the President's

01:38approval numbers, job approval numbers, and his standing with voters was starting to take a hit

01:46very quickly because of the tariffs announcement. When we spoke right before the announcement,

01:51we said that the President, to begin with, had a very short runway when it came to these tariffs.

01:57And frankly, he ran out of that runway, at least for the time being, which is why it forced his hand on

02:05this 90-day pause. Bottom line, you know, on April the 2nd, when the President announced the tariffs,

02:14he was at 52% approval with voters, above 50% and a high approval for Trump historically, close to where he

02:25started off the year when he was born in as President. And by yesterday, that approval rating had fallen to 47%,

02:38so full five points across the board in a matter of a week. And even in a matter of a couple of weeks,

02:47his approval on handling the economy, which is the number one reason why voters voted for Trump,

02:53Trump has decreased by six points. He was at 50% approval with regards to the economy on the 21st of

03:03March. And as of yesterday, that approval is below 44%. So the President got a series of signals, both from

03:14the markets and voters. And these are two of his prime and two of his favorite stakeholders. So to

03:23some extent, he was forced to listen, and he was forced to hit the pause button and reassess the

03:30tariffs policy going forward. It seems from what you're saying that his approval rating and the

03:36stock market really trended in the same direction since his tariff announcement, which was down. And you

03:42and I spoke right after he started his second term. And I believe that one of the terms in our headline

03:49was record high approval rating in around February. Is it precedented to see the approval rating of a

03:56president go down so dramatically in just one week?

04:00Well, yes, it's it's precedent that it has happened before. What Trump has to be careful of is that this

04:10doesn't become his Afghanistan moment. And what I mean by that is that when you look at President Biden's

04:16approval ratings, his approval was above 50% from his own inauguration in 2021 up until the Afghanistan

04:26pullout or debacle in August. And when he fell a full 10 points, if not far, and he never really recovered

04:35from that for the rest of his administration. So both the markets and leadership, to some extent,

04:46are a confidence game. And it was clear that this tariff policy were eroding confidence in Trump's

04:53ability to manage the economy, the whole reason why he was voted in. And, you know, you have to be very

05:03careful not to lose the confidence of voters because regaining it is significantly harder than just

05:10preserving it. And as I said, a lot of signals were pointing in the wrong direction, right? On April the

05:152nd, you know, 48% of Americans were saying that the economy is on the wrong track. By April the 7th,

05:25that number was 54%. So fairly significant jump of six points. When you look at the direction of the

05:32country on April the 2nd, more voters were saying the country is headed in the right direction.

05:39Today, 51% of voters, the majority, are now saying that the country is headed in the wrong track. And

05:46that measure has jumped by a full eight points. 66% of voters today say that the state of the economy is

05:55weak. When Trump took office, actually, those perceptions around the economy started to turn in the

06:01right direction. And in a similar fashion, we track whether or not voters are saying that their

06:06personal financial situation is improving or getting worse. And we really saw within a week a

06:12jump in those who are saying that their personal financial situation is getting worse. So when it

06:19comes to the confidence game of the relationship between the leader elected for a set of reasons by the

06:25voters and the way that voters are perceiving the performance of the leader, there was a very fast

06:35decrease in voters thinking that tariffs are an effective economic and foreign policy. Again,

06:44on April the 2nd, 57% said that tariffs are effective as a form of policy. By the middle of this week,

06:52that number had decreased to 49%, with actually a majority of 51%, the very slight majority starting to say

06:59it's not effective. So when it comes to that confidence game, it started to erode for Trump. And secondly,

07:09these are not the core reasons why voters voted Trump in. They voted him in to handle inflation. They voted him in to

07:16manage the economy better than the Democrats and better than Biden was managing the economy. They voted

07:22him in to fix immigration, where he's actually getting very high approval ratings, you know, above 50%. But

07:30tariffs were never the voters' favorite policy. And again, for all of these reasons combined together,

07:37Trump was forced to hit pause. And it's to be seen now what happens with tariffs as a policy. Will voters give the

07:44administration a second bite at the apple because the administration is able to show some wins around

07:52the tariffs policy that it has already implemented? Or is this a done deal and we're unlikely to see

08:01another strong push of across-the-board, quote-unquote, reciprocal tariffs?

08:06With economists I've talked to as well as economists general commentary on the tariffs,

08:13they said the chance of a recession was more likely or not. And in fact, some said, hey,

08:19we are definitely going to head into a recession this year unless President Trump finds that off-ramp.

08:24And it seems as of Wednesday, he did find that off-ramp in largely pausing the tariffs. But did voters

08:31consider a recession as a real possibility? What did that look like?

08:35Yeah, an overwhelming amount of voters actually said that the tariffs on imported goods will cause

08:42a short-term recession. That was 71% of the overall public or overall voters. But it also included 79%

08:50of business decision makers, 74% of investors, and importantly, 70% of independents.

08:59And also 60% of Republicans, actually. So across the board, everyone was expecting a recession.

09:07They were feeling anxious about the state of the economy. 72% expected higher prices. And in a signal

09:15that is even more worrying for the administration, was more worrying for the administration, is that

09:21they actually expected the long-term impact of tariffs on the economy to lead to economic decline.

09:29rather than growth. 53% started to say it would lead to economic decline. Only 47% were saying

09:36it will lead to growth. And while the president maintained the support of Republicans,

09:4376% said it will lead to growth, and they are squarely on the side of the president. Almost all other

09:50audiences were very, very concerned and very cautious about what this would mean, including investors or

10:00stock owners, which were split 50-50 on what the long-term impact would be. So there was a lot of

10:08anxiety. And anxiety is never good in the markets and certainly never good with voters.

10:13Treasury Secretary Scott Besson said on Wednesday morning, and this was a couple hours after the

10:20tariffs went into effect, that CEOs are telling him, hey, the economy is in pretty good shape here.

10:26They weren't too concerned. He also said that the tariff policy was for Main Street. It's Main Street's

10:32turn now. Wall Street has had their turn for years. From this poll, what is the sense from business leaders,

10:39small and medium-sized businesses, did they have more confidence in the tariff policies opposed to

10:45Wall Street? They did. Business leaders in general were more favorable towards the president than

10:53investors were and the general public. And that makes sense, right? Because for most small and medium-sized

11:00businesses across the country, some form of protectionism would support their competitiveness

11:06or their ability to grow market share. But obviously, there's a difference between

11:13Wall Street or business leaders of the Fortune 100 companies, which do business globally, which were

11:20all ringing the alarm bells, and most of the business leaders in Main Street, which had approached a

11:27wait-and-see opportunity. I think concerning for the administration was the fact that people

11:34actually did not believe that the markets would bounce back quickly enough from tariffs. And

11:43essentially, the majority expected the bounce back to take a year or longer. With the BDMs really being

11:51that exception, 52% of them, the business decision makers, 52% of them said it will bounce back in

11:58between, you know, three months to a year or less. Everyone else actually expected the recovery period

12:07to be slow and to be protracted. And consumers had started to factor that in. So while they were saying that

12:14they were still purchasing everyday goods like groceries, beverages, clothing, and shoes, as usual,

12:24they actually said that they were starting to hold back on upgrading their phones, buying consumer electronics,

12:31household appliances, buying a new car, and buying luxury goods. And we're talking about, you know,

12:37close to seven in 10 of consumers, say, for example, they were holding back on buying a new car

12:43or buying luxury goods. So the impact to the economy was starting to be felt by a cooling effect of sorts

12:55with consumers. And that's always concerning and worrying as well. And I'll say one other thing,

13:02which is when you ask people, do the tariffs go too far or do they not go far enough or are they about

13:10right? Close to 50% said that the tariffs go too far. About a third said about right. And only about

13:1920% said that they did not go far enough. So there was this consensus that Trump was being very heavy

13:26handed right out of the gate. And this was leading to a lot of unnecessary instability, a lot of anxiety,

13:35and that frankly was going to boomerang or backfire because consumers and voters had started to say

13:42that we don't quite think that the tariffs will have the effect that Trump intends, which is to get

13:49other countries to give us concessions because he has gone too far. 57% were actually doubting whether

13:55it would have the intended effect. And that was a significant shift from before April the 2nd,

14:00when you had really 53 to 55% that said the opposite or held the opposite view. They were

14:07thinking that, you know what? Tariffs could work. It's something new. It's something different.

14:12Maybe we should let Trump try it out. So the heavy handed component did not help the administration.

14:19The fact that there wasn't a lot of structure in the rollout of these tariffs also didn't help.

14:23To the point about not a lot of structure in the rollout, the White House was saying up until

14:30President Trump announced this pause, we will not pause. There will be no pause on tariffs.

14:35Even an economist I talked to yesterday morning before the pause said President Trump is not

14:41changing his tune. Obviously, we saw the president change his tune. There's reporting that the bond market

14:47reaction had something to do with it. When President Trump was asked, he said,

14:50hey, I saw people get queasy. I saw people get yippy about what they were seeing about the economy.

14:57Did people want him to change course here? Because there's been two arguments. Supporters

15:02of President Trump have said, hey, this is the art of the deal. People who weren't so supportive,

15:07who were a little more critical said, hey, it really looks like the president blinked here.

15:11Did they want him to stand firm in this tariff policy? Or did they want him to bend a bit and to pause?

15:17What's your general consensus from these numbers? Well, right now, where we stand is that voters are

15:24quite split, again, as I said, on whether or not tariffs are an effective foreign economic policy

15:32or not. And they clearly believe that it causes instability. They clearly believe that it will lead

15:40to higher prices. And those are not good expectations to have for the administration.

15:48And certainly, the fact that they don't believe that it will lead to significant economic growth,

15:55but rather it will lead to economic decline, is problematic, right? Because the whole

15:59people of the administration was that this might trigger a short-term recession. It will be painful in

16:05the short-term, but we're going to bounce back. And in that way, then they would expect to do well

16:10in the midterms, which are just around the quarter. That said, voters still think that tariffs will create

16:17more jobs than they'll take away. Voters still believe, and this is close to 50% of all voters, that

16:24it will increase revenues for the U.S. Treasury, rather than the 3 in 10 that says that it will decrease

16:31increase revenues. So in some regard, Trump did communicate clearly what the tariffs are for.

16:38They're about jobs and protecting jobs, and they're about raising money for the U.S. government.

16:47So the balance here really is in which of these set of arguments will win with voters. And we have to see

16:58what the administration will announce, whether there are any wins, bilateral trade agreements that

17:05bring tariffs down to zero for both parties, as the president has entertained possibly with Europe,

17:12and as the European commissioners have said that they'd be open to doing, and whether or not he can

17:18reach deals with the likes of Japan and Vietnam and others. So it's yet to be seen. But right now,

17:25public opinion is quite split. And the reason public opinion is where it is, is because of the tumult that

17:35was created over the span of a week, with tariffs that the public clearly sees as being too heavy-handed,

17:42and also not having been rolled out in a structured way, and in a way that would get to the intended goals.

17:49Well, it certainly remains to be seen if his approval rating, like the stock market,

17:54starts to make a bit of a rebound. And I know you will have the numbers soon enough on that,

18:00as we see the impacts of this tariff whiplash. Until then, Driton Nesho, I look forward to the

18:06conversation. Thanks for joining me. Thanks for having me.

18:10Driton Nesho

TARIFF POLL: Survey Reveals How Voters Feel About Trump Tariffs—& Perhaps Partly Why He Issued Pause

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