Trump Surpasses 80 Days in Office, Approval Rating at 42%... Not as High as First Term

Lower Than Recent Former Presidents

Donald Trump, President of the United States, is speaking at the Easter celebration dinner held at the White House on the 16th (local time). Photo by AP Yonhap News

A poll revealed that the approval rating of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has been in office for over 80 days, has dropped to 42%, marking an all-time low. This figure is lower than the approval rating recorded during the same period of Trump's first administration in 2016, highlighting the most pronounced early-term decline among recently inaugurated U.S. presidents.

On the 16th (local time), the British weekly magazine The Economist reported that a poll conducted by YouGov from the 13th to the 15th, surveying 1,512 American adults, showed that 42% of respondents viewed President Trump's governance positively.

This represents a 14 percentage point drop compared to the approval rating recorded immediately after his inauguration, marking the lowest level since taking office. The disapproval rating stood at 52%.

The Economist noted that this decline in approval is steeper than that experienced during Trump's first administration in 2016. According to YouGov's regular polls, the approval rating during the same period of Trump's first term fell by about 5 percentage points.

At the start of Trump's second administration, the positive approval rating exceeded the negative, but this reversed around the 50-day mark after inauguration.

Compared to recent U.S. presidents, this is also a poor performance. Both former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, inaugurated in 2009 and 2021 respectively, maintained higher positive approval ratings than negative ones for about the first 100 days, whereas in the current Trump administration, this ratio has already reversed.

The Economist stated that this poll result is not a 'mystery,' suggesting that the recent tariff policies of the Trump administration, which caused a sharp drop in stock prices, have eroded voters' confidence in economic recovery.