| 摘要 | This week President Trump renewed his threats to place additional tariffs on billions of dollars’ worth of Chinese goods. How are Americans feeling about Trump’s trade policies in general and about the China tariffs? Have they begun to pinch consumers? What do the polls tell us now?
Pollsters don’t ask about trade or tariffs regularly so we need to review a collection of polls taken at different times with different question wording to answer these questions. We also have to sort through the partisan fog that hangs over most poll responses now, with Democrats and Republicans on opposite sides of most questions that invoke the president. There is another problem with interpreting the polls on trade. There are some groups that are likely being severely hurt right now by the president’s policies, but it is next to impossible to find them in national polls. Soybean farmers, for example, are only 2% of the population, and we have no polls about how these farmers are faring.
Let’s start with general views of trade. It isn’t a top issue for most people. When Gallup asked in June about the most important problem facing the country today, 1% volunteered “foreign trade/trade deficit.” The top issue in June, “the government/poor leadership,” was volunteered by 26%. In monthly iterations of this question since December, spontaneous mentions of trade have never been higher than 1%. A late May-early June Kaiser Family Foundation question asked Democrats and Democratic leaning independents about 11 issues they might want the presidential candidates to talk about during the debates. “International trade and tariffs” ranked last in terms of being “very important”.
People believe, as they have been for a long time, that trade in general is good. A Pew Research Center headline captured overall sentiment well: “Americans agree on trade: Good for the country, but not great for jobs.” A June AP/NORC poll found that 50% believed trade agreements were generally good for the US economy, 17% bad, and 31% said they didn’t make much difference either way.
As for the tariffs put in place by Trump, 51% in the AP/NORC poll said they hurt the national economy, 21% neither helped nor hurt, and 26% helped. Forty-two percent in the poll said the tariffs hurt them and their families, 41% neither helped nor hurt, and only 15% helped. Americans don’t think trade wars can be won.
More people disapprove than approve of the way Trump is handling trade. CNN has asked its question nine times, and disapproval of the president has always outweighed approval. In late May, 41% approved and 47% disapproved. At the same time, keeping the pressure on China is popular. A Harvard/Harris online question from late May found that 53% of registered voters approved of the “administration’s decision to increase tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods . . . in response to China’s backtracking on a trade deal between the two countries.” In another question, 52% of registered voters favored and 48% opposed the administration applying a 25% tariff on the remaining imports from China.
The question remaining is how Trump’s tariffs are affecting consumers now. Do they feel they are paying more? The polls don’t provide a clear answer, but they provide some hints.
Views about the economy remain high and positive overall. In June, researchers at the University of Michigan’s Survey of Consumers reported that unfavorable references to tariffs were spontaneously mentioned by 45% of consumers when asked about the economy, up from 30% in May. The prior high was 35% in July 2018. This may indicate that Americans are paying more attention. A May online Economist/YouGov poll showed that only 36% had heard a lot about Trump imposing 25% tariffs on products from China. Americans said American companies and people pay the tariffs (59%), while 17% said companies and people in China do. In the poll, a significant 25% of those surveyed said they weren’t sure whether the tariffs would help them or hurt them personally, while 31% said they would neither help nor hurt. Of the remainder, 11% said they would help, while a third said they would hurt. In a June Fox News poll, 26% said they were extremely concerned, 20% very concerned, 33% somewhat concerned, and 18% not at all concerned that new tariffs would make the products they buy more expensive.
The bottom line here is that Americans expect the tariffs to hurt. But at this point, for most Americans, it isn’t clear that they are doing so. |
