Majority of Americans, Canadians agree Trump’s tariffs were wrong: Poll

A majority of U.S. and Canadian adults in a new survey released Wednesday said they disagreed with President Trump’s decision to hike tariffs on goods imported by Canada.

The Politico/Public First poll found that 83 percent of Canadians and 56 percent of Americans believe the increased import taxes on the U.S.’s northern neighbor were “wrong.”

Another 26 percent of surveyed U.S. adults supported the Trump administration’s tariffs on Ottawa, while only 8 percent of Canadian respondents said the same.

The two groups were more split on the issue of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. Carney’s government levied duties as high as 50 percent on $27.6 billion in American imports, and they went into effect earlier this month.

Canada’s economic policies countered the Trump administration’s 50 percent tariffs on $20 billion in products imported into the U.S. Trump responded by threatening to impose 50 percent tariffs on imported trucks, cars, auto parts and steel going into effect on New Year’s Day.

Just more than 70 percent of Canadians in the latest poll said they approved of the prime minister’s actions. Another 33 percent of Americans agreed, while 31 percent said Carney’s levies were “wrong” and 35 percent were unsure.

Trump’s approval ratings have taken a dip amid the rising cost of living, which is tied to global energy shortages during the Iran war. The average price of standard and diesel gas has skyrocketed since the conflict began more than six months ago.

The president brushed aside these rising costs, saying recently at a political rally in North Carolina that hiked gas prices were a “very inexpensive price to pay for what we’ve done.”

In an NBC News poll released this week, 55 percent of the surveyed U.S. adults said the president’s policies have weakened the country’s economy. Additionally, a Marquette Law School survey conducted in July found 75 percent of American respondents said they do not believe the conflict was “worth the cost.”

The Politico poll was conducted among 2,064 U.S. adults and 2,199 Canadian adults from Sept. 13-15. The margin of error is approximately 2.2 percentage points for Americans and 2.1 for Canadians.