The majority of registered voters say they are more likely to back a presidential candidate who supports United States tariffs on all foreign imports, a plan proposed by former President Donald Trump, a new poll reveals.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll shows 56 percent of voters are more likely to support a candidate who supports a 10-percent tariff on all imports and a 60-percent tariff on imports from China. Only 41 percent of voters said they would be less likely to support a candidate who is proposing higher tariffs.
Swing voters, by a majority, backed candidates who were pro-tariff, while 1 in 3 Democrat voters said they would be more likely to support a candidate who backs higher tariffs.
Such a tariff plan has been proposed by Trump, but Vice President Kamala Harris has attacked it, falsely labeling it a “national sales tax.”
At the Democrat National Convention (DNC), Harris used claims from a libertarian free trade organization to attack Trump’s tariff plan and suggested that more tariffs would spur inflation.
Chinese executives have made the same claims about Trump’s tariff plan as Harris.
Last week, Chinese economist Hao Hong with GROW Investment Group claimed Trump’s proposed tariffs are a “lose-lose” proposition for the United States and for China.
“Because the Chinese export sector has been so competitive, it’s been a driving force in lowering global inflation … if you put a 100 percent tariff on Chinese exports, for example, one could only imagine how high the U.S. inflation is going to go,” Hong said.
Research, though, has repeatedly shown that current inflation has little to do with the U.S. hiking tariffs on imports in recent years.
“The timing of the tariffs clearly shows no correlation with inflation, and eliminating tariffs could not plausibly restrain it,” Economic Policy Institute (EPI) researchers write. “The bulk of the tariffs were in place before 2020, yet, inflation only began accelerating in March 2021. Clearly, inflation was driven by many sources besides tariffs.”
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at
