Seven in 10 Americans think President Donald Trump’s tariffs on international trade will drive up U.S. inflation, outweighing hopes that they’ll boost manufacturing employment and fueling a 64% disapproval rate of how he’s handling the issue.
Even nearly half of Republicans — 47% in the ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll released Friday — said they think tariffs will negatively impact inflation. That jumps to 75% among independents, a swing group in national politics.
The tariffs admittedly are a moving target. The administration has paused some (albeit not those on China) pending negotiations.
And there is a perceived positive: 59% said they think the tariffs will have a positive impact on creating manufacturing jobs in the United States, including 90% of Republicans and 60% of independents. That, along with bringing prices down, were some of Trump’s key campaign promises.
But — given the current state of play — the scale tips negative again on a third factor: 56% in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates with fieldwork by Ipsos, think Trump’s handling of tariffs will negatively impact America’s economic leadership in the world vs. 42% who see a positive impact.
Democrats, for their part, are roundly opposed to the tariffs. Nine in 10 think they will negatively impact inflation (90%) and U.S. economic leadership in the world (89%) alike, and a near-unanimous 96% disapprove of Trump’s handling of them. Democrats aren’t sold on tariffs creating manufacturing jobs, either: 68% think they’ll hurt, not help.
Given inflation fears, Trump’s overall rating for handling tariffs is a broad 30 percentage points underwater, 34%-64%. That’s far worse than his 7-point deficit in approval on handling immigration (as reported here), demonstrating that public sentiment is especially prickly when economic well-being is on the line.
Indeed, in his own party, 25% of Republicans disapprove of Trump’s handling of tariffs, as do 30% of conservatives. And disapproval reaches 48% among non-college-educated white men and 47% of rural Americans, two of Trump’s core support groups.
Methodology: This ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll was conducted online via the probability-based Ipsos KnowledgePanel® April 18-22, 2025, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 2,464 adults. Partisan divisions are 30%-30%-29%, Democrats-Republicans-independents.
Results have a margin of error of 2 percentage points, including the design effect. Error margins are larger for subgroups. Sampling error is not the only source of differences in polls.
The survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates, with sampling and data collection by Ipsos. See details on ABC News survey methodology here.
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