Americans are deeply divided along partisan lines about tariffs and the U.S.’s foreign alliances, according to a new poll.
In the poll from The Wall Street Journal, 77 percent of Republican voters expressed a mostly positive view of tariffs’ impact on the economy and said they help create jobs, while 93 percent of Democrats said they drive higher prices and have a mostly negative impact.
Overall, a majority of the registered voters polled — 54 percent — viewed tariffs negatively and said they did not support President Trump’s tariff plans.
Similar partisan divisions emerged when respondents were asked about the U.S.’s foreign alliances and the aid it provides to other countries.
Eighty-one percent of Republican voters said the country’s allies haven’t shouldered enough responsibility for their own defense and that U.S. tax dollars should no longer be used to defend them, while 83 percent of Democrats said foreign alliances are a source of strength and should be funded by tax dollars. Eighty-one percent of Democrats held a favorable view of NATO, compared to just 31 percent of Republicans.
Similarly, 83 percent of Democrats supported the U.S. continuing to provide financial aid to Ukraine amid its ongoing war with Russia, while 79 percent of Republicans opposed it.
Overall, a narrow majority of 51 percent of voters supported significantly reducing broader foreign aid, with 45 percent opposing it. Ninety-two percent of Republicans voiced support for such cuts, while 85 percent of Democrats said the opposite.
The poll was conducted from March 27 to April 1, before Trump last Wednesday announced an general 10 percent tariff on goods imported into the United States, alongside targeted tariffs aimed at multiple U.S. trading partners.
Markets dropped dramatically following the announcement, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average losing 2,200 points and the S&P 500 dropping by 10 percent over the course of Thursday and Friday.
On Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed with a drop of 349 points. It has dipped by more than 4,000 points since Trump unveiled the reciprocal tariffs.
Trump defended his sweeping tariffs Sunday amid plunging markets, saying he did not “want anything to go down.”
“When you look at the trade deficit we have with certain countries, with China it’s a trillion dollars,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.
“And we have to solve our trade deficit with China. … Hundreds of billions of dollars a year we lose with China. And unless we solve that problem, I’m not going to make a deal,” he continued.
The president has also long expressed skepticism of NATO and has repeatedly pushed allies to contribute more to defense spending, arguing that the U.S. takes on a heavier burden than other members of the alliance.
And the Trump administration has moved to massively reduce U.S. foreign aid, seeking to freeze billions of dollars in assistance and to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) shortly after Trump returned to the White House.
The Wall Street Journal poll was conducted from March 27 to April 1 among 1,500 registered voters and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.
