This implies that a majority of voters are less more likely to support a candidate who supports universal tariffs NBC News The poll released Sunday undermines a cornerstone of former President Donald Trump's campaign economic proposal.
The poll found that 44% of respondents said they’d be less inclined to vote for a candidate who generally supported a tariff of as much as 20% on imports. Meanwhile, 35% said they’d be more more likely to support someone with this tariff proposal, while 19% said it will make no difference.
The poll polled 1,000 registered voters Oct. 4-8 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
Despite the unpopularity of universal tariffs with voters, Trump has embraced the hardliner proposal.
“The higher the tariff, the more likely it is that the company will come to the United States and build a factory in the United States so they don't have to pay the tariff,” Trump said in an interview with Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait last Tuesday on the Economic Club of Chicago.
“You make the tariffs so high, so terrible, so disgusting that they come immediately,” the Republican presidential candidate added.
Trump has proposed imposing a 20% tariff on all goods from all countries, with a very high 60% tariff on Chinese imports.
The former president frames this tariff approach as a long-term strategy for onshore industries akin to manufacturing to create more domestic jobs and generate revenue from other countries to finance his other proposals.
But some economists criticize blanket tariffs, mentioning that U.S. importers are those bearing the burden of import tariffs – costs which are more likely to be passed on to consumers. As a result, economists claim that such harsh tariff policies could stoke inflation again just because it has begun to chill.
The Trump tariffs also drew criticism throughout the Republican Party.
“I’m not a fan of tariffs,” Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in late September. “They are raising prices for American consumers.”
For its part, the Biden-Harris administration has taken a hawkish approach to trade policy, particularly toward China, even maintaining a few of Trump's first tariffs. In May, President Joe Biden further increased tariffs on $18 billion in Chinese imports.
But the administration maintains that its targeted tariff approach is different from Trump's sweeping proposals.
“We have imposed a series of narrow, carefully targeted tariffs in strategic sectors that we have consciously chosen to promote in the United States,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in an MSNBC interview on Friday.
“Broad-based tariffs,” a bunch of economists recently said, overwhelmingly believed they’d hurt economic growth.”
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