Republican presidential candidate and former US President Trump delivered a speech when visiting his campaign office in Hamtramck, Michigan, USA on October 18, 2024.
Brian Snyder | Reuters
A majority of voters are less likely to support a promoted candidate general tariffaccording to nbc news Polls released Sunday undermine former president’s cornerstone economic proposals Donald Trumpcampaign.
The poll found that 44% of respondents said they would be less willing to vote for a candidate who would impose sweeping tariffs of up to 20% on imported products. Meanwhile, 35% said they were more likely to support someone proposing tariffs, while 19% said it made no difference.
The poll, which surveyed 1,000 registered voters from October 4 to 8, had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
Although widespread tariffs are unpopular with voters, Trump has persisted with his tough proposals.
“The higher the tariffs, the more likely that company will be able to come into the U.S. and build a factory in the U.S. and therefore not have to pay the tariffs,” Trump said in an interview with Bloomberg Editors. Economic Club of Chicago President John Mickelthway said last Tuesday John Micklethwait.
The Republican presidential candidate added: “You make the tariffs so high, so terrible, so obnoxious that they’re coming right away.”
Trump proposed imposing 20% tariffs on all goods from all countries, including up to 60% tariffs on Chinese imports.
The former president sees this tariff approach as a long-term strategy for land-based industries like manufacturing, creating more domestic jobs and generating revenue from other countries to pay for his other proposals.
But some economists have criticized sweeping tariffs, noting that U.S. importers are the ones bearing the burden of import taxes and that those costs could be passed on to consumers. As a result, economists claim such tough tariffs could lead to a resurgence of inflation just as it begins to cool.
Trump’s tariffs are also facing pressure from within the Republican Party.
“I don’t like tariffs,” Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in late September. “They raised prices for American consumers.”
Vice President Kamala HarrisTrump’s Democratic opponents have taken advantage of the backlash, calling his tariff proposals ” “Trump imposes sales tax.”
The Biden-Harris administration has taken a tough stance on trade policy, especially toward China, even retaining some of the tariffs from Trump’s first term. in May, President Joe Biden Further increased tariffs on $18 billion worth of Chinese imports.
But the administration insists its approach to targeted tariffs differs from Trump’s sweeping proposals.
“We implemented a narrow, highly targeted set of tariffs on strategic industries, and we made a conscious decision to promote those tariffs in the United States,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in an interview with MSNBC on Friday.
“A group of economists recently weighed broad-based tariffs and they overwhelmingly agreed that they would hurt economic growth.”
