Trump is stronger on immigration and weaker on trade, an AP-NORC poll finds

WASHINGTON (AP) — Immigration remains a strength for President Donald Trump, but his handling of tariffs is getting more negative feedback, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

About half of U.S. adults approve of Trump’s approach to immigration, the survey shows, but only about 4 in 10 have a positive view of the way he’s handling the economy and trade negotiations.

The poll indicates that many Americans are still on board with Trump’s efforts to ramp up deportations and restrict immigration. But it also suggests that the Republican president’s threats to impose tariffs — which have been accompanied by tumbling consumer confidence and wild stock market swings — might be erasing his advantage on another issue that he made central to his winning 2024 campaign.

The economy was a drag on then-President Joe Biden, who saw the share of Americans who approved of his handling of the economy fall to a low of roughly 3 in 10 in 2023. Trump drew considerable strength in November from voters who prioritized the economy, but just before he took office in January, an AP-NORC poll found that few Americans had high confidence that he’d make progress on lowering prices in his first year.

Views of Trump’s job performance overall are more negative than positive, the survey found. About 4 in 10 U.S. adults approve of the way Trump is handling his job as president, and more than half disapprove. Negative opinions are also stronger than positive opinions — about 4 in 10 U.S. adults strongly disapprove of Trump’s job performance, while about 2 in 10 strongly approve.

Trump’s job approval is highest on immigration

More U.S. adults say they approve of Trump’s handling of immigration than his approach to the presidency as a whole.

That trend even extends to Democrats. Relatively few, about 2 in 10, say they’re on board with how Trump is approaching immigration, but that’s higher than the roughly 1 in 10 who approve of his handling of the economy and his job as a whole.

The durability of Trump’s appeal on immigration underscores that many U.S. adults support his tough approach, which he has prioritized in the first few months of his second term.

In the past few weeks, Trump’s administration has been locked in a court struggle over the deportation of Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador under an 18th century wartime law, made moves to deport foreign students who took part in pro-Palestinian demonstrations at colleges, and attempted to suspend the nation’s refugee admissions system.

Voters who said immigration was their most important issue last November overwhelmingly favored more restrictive policies, according to AP VoteCast, a sweeping survey of more than 120,000 voters. The issue was also a higher priority for Americans heading into 2025 than it had been the previous year.

Signs of potential weakness on trade and the economy

There are warning signs for Trump in the poll, too, particularly in Americans’ assessment of his work on tariffs and the economy.

Trade negotiations with other countries is the issue on which he’s rated especially negatively, with about 6 in 10 U.S. adults saying they disapprove of his job performance. It’s a relative low point, even among Republicans. About 7 in 10 Republicans approve of Trump’s handling of trade — still relatively high, but lower than the roughly 9 in 10 who approve of his approach on immigration.

Trump’s approach on other issues — including managing the federal government, his handling of foreign conflicts, Social Security and the economy — roughly track with his overall job approval.

But even though the economy doesn’t stand out quite as starkly as trade negotiations, Trump’s relatively low rating on that issue could be a problem for him going forward.

During his first term, the economy was an issue on which Americans frequently gave Trump good marks. In October 2020, just before he lost reelection, an AP-NORC poll found that about half of U.S. adults approved of Trump’s handling of the economy, putting the rating far above his performance on race relations and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prices and economic growth were also a major motivator for the voters who sent Trump back to the White House for a second term. Trump won overwhelmingly among voters who said the economy was the most important issue facing the country, AP VoteCast found, and he was also the choice of most voters who said that inflation was the most important issue for their vote.

Now, Trump’s stewardship of the economy is being put to the test again — and the AP-NORC poll isn’t the only sign that his threats of tariffs are making everyday Americans nervous. Consumer confidence has been falling over the past few months. Trump has argued that tariffs would bring more jobs in the auto industry to the U.S. and narrow the budget deficit, but prices on imported cars could also rise steeply if some of the costs of the taxes are passed along to consumers.

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The AP-NORC poll of 1,229 adults was conducted March 20-24, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.