Washington Post, ABC, and Ipsos Poll
Approval Rating for Administration at 41%
Down 2 Percentage Points from September
Seven out of ten Americans do not support President Donald Trump’s tariff policy, and a similar proportion believe the United States is heading in the wrong direction.
Donald Trump, President of the United States, is delivering a special keynote speech at the 2025 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation CEO Summit held at the Gyeongju Arts Center in Gyeongbuk on the 29th. 2025.10.29 Photo by Kang Jinhyung
According to the Washington Post and ABC News on November 2 (local time), a poll conducted by Ipsos from October 24 to 28 among 2,725 Americans found that 65% of respondents do not support the policy of increasing tariffs on imports (margin of error: 2.8 percentage points). Only 33% expressed support for the policy.
President Trump’s overall job approval rating stands at 41%, a 2 percentage point drop from the 43% recorded in September. This suggests that even among Americans who view the Trump administration’s overall performance positively, a considerable number have a negative perception of the tariff policy.
In particular, the tariff policy received the lowest level of support among the Trump administration’s major policies. By category, support rates were as follows: federal government operations (36%), the economy (37%), the Russia-Ukraine situation (39%), foreign relations (40%), immigration (43%), crime response (44%), and the Israel-Gaza situation (46%)-all higher than the support for the tariff policy.
President Trump implemented a large-scale global tariff policy immediately after returning to office on January 20. In April, he announced reciprocal tariffs and imposed an immediate 10% base tariff on all imported goods worldwide. For countries with significant trade deficits with the United States, additional country-specific tariffs were applied, using tariff and non-tariff barriers as justification. In the case of South Korea, a total tariff rate of 25% was initially planned, but this was reduced to 15% in exchange for a commitment to invest 35 billion dollars in the United States. The Trump administration is pushing the tariff policy as a core national agenda to reduce the trade deficit, restore manufacturing, and increase tax revenue. However, public sentiment remains cold due to concerns about rising prices.
Meanwhile, 67% of respondents in this survey said the United States is heading in the wrong direction. Specifically, 95% of Democratic supporters and 77% of independent voters gave a negative assessment, while only 29% of Republican supporters responded similarly. Conversely, only 32% said the United States is heading in the right direction, about half the rate of the negative responses.
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