President-elect Donald Trump’s tariffs could hurt the U.S. economy, a majority of Americans say in a new national poll.
Trump threatened to impose new tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China as part of an effort to curtail illegal immigration and drugs. This includes a 25% tariff on goods entering the country from Mexico and Canada and an additional 10% tariff on goods coming in from China.
Business leaders and economists have warned for months that tariffs could raise prices for the U.S. consumer and hurt the country’s economy. But Trump, who believes tariffs will encourage these countries to crack down on illegal immigration and drugs, has vowed to impose them anyway.
And the new poll from Emerson College shows that American voters are wary about the tariffs and whether they would actually help the U.S. economy.
About 51% of voters said that additional tariffs on Canada will hurt the U.S. economy, 50% said the same of tariffs on Mexico and 49% said the additional tariffs on China will also hurt the U.S. economy, according to the poll.
Just 39% believe that the tariffs on China will help the U.S., while 36% said the same of tariffs on Mexico. Just 32 percent believe that tariffs on Canada will boost the economy.
Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said Trump voters are more likely to say that tariffs will help the economy.
“Voter attitudes on tariffs are sharply divided by 2024 vote preferences,” Kimball said in the press release. “Among Trump voters, 69% believe tariffs on China will help the economy, while 17% disagree. In contrast, 79% of Harris voters think tariffs will hurt the economy, with 13% seeing them as beneficial.”
Trump also revealed in a recent interview with NBC News that he “can’t guarantee” Americans would not pay more as a result of the tariffs. This comes after months of touting his tariff plan on the campaign trail to prospective voters.
“I can’t guarantee anything. I can’t guarantee tomorrow. But I can say that if you looked at my – just pre-Covid, we had the greatest economy in the history of our country,” he told NBC’s Kristen Welker.
The Emerson College poll was conducted Dec. 11-13 among 1,000 registered voters and has a credibility interval of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
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