The Surprising Staying Power of Trump’s Tariffs

Allison J. Smith is deputy director for geoeconomics at CFR.

Affordability concerns are weighing on Americans’ minds, and many associate tariffs with rising prices. Yet those expecting an overwhelming groundswell of support for reversing U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff-forward trade policy are likely to be disappointed. Although a plurality of Americans agrees that the main impact of tariffs is to raise prices, there is much less agreement on what to do about them.

Americans across party affiliation are anxious about the cost of a range of goods, according to multiple polls, including a Council on Foreign Relations–Morning Consult survey conducted in August. The survey found that 75 percent of adults are concerned about being able to afford groceries and food products, including 46 percent who are very concerned, while more than half are also worried about affording pharmaceuticals and medical supplies. Meanwhile, 41 percent of those surveyed said the main impact of tariffs is to raise prices.

Although Americans may loathe the personal costs of tariffs, their views on what to do about them are mixed. Fewer than 30 percent of those surveyed wanted all tariffs to be removed, while 20–24 percent (depending on the trading partner) wanted to limit tariffs to national security issues. Meanwhile, around 30 percent of Americans supported keeping all of Trump’s tariffs on specific partners or using them as leverage to negotiate additional trade concessions with various trading partners.

That raises the question of why there is not more support for removing tariffs if so many Americans believe they are raising prices. One argument is that nobody wants to jeopardize U.S. national security. Republican and Democratic administrations alike have cited national security concerns as justification for widening the aperture of exemptions to unrestricted trade to include climate change, public health, energy security, and other issues. The Biden administration, for example, maintained most of President Trump’s first-term tariffs with a few exceptions. Increased Section 301 tariffs on China were explained as critical to supporting “strategic sectors,” including batteries, critical minerals, electric vehicles, ship-to-shore cranes, solar cells, semiconductors, and steel and aluminum. For most of Biden’s term, U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports were around 19 percent, lower than the 35.2 percent in August 2026 but much higher than the 3.1 percent in January 2018.

But national security can be a nebulous term, and even if politicians are keen to expand its scope, Americans do not find every critical-to-national-security argument convincing. The data bears this out. The survey showed that people are more likely to define a good as critical to national security if it has a military application or helps the United States compete economically in emerging and high-tech industries. Fewer Americans believe that goods related to public health, U.S. manufacturing, or environmental protection are critical to national security.

Likewise, Americans view energy and medicine as more important to national security than other goods, such as automobiles, computers, and clothing. The survey also found that Americans distinguish between allies and rivals: although they are comfortable importing essential national security goods from Canada, Germany, Japan, and other allies, they are less enthusiastic about importing those goods from China.

The real contributor to the staying power of tariffs may end up being partisanship. Americans from both parties are not against the president raising tariffs, especially when that president is from their own party. Support for presidential authority to impose tariffs jumps by around 10 percentage points for Democrats and Republicans when the president raising tariffs is from their party.

The real contributor to the staying power of tariffs may end up being partisanship.

Next week’s midterms may see a backlash over the degree and scope of Trump’s tariffs. But even if Democrats take the House of Representatives or the Senate, or win back the White House in 2028, there is unlikely to be a significant shift in U.S. trade policy. Some of the more dubious tariffs on traditional allies such as Canada or on goods where the connection to national security appears tenuous (kitchen cabinets, for example) may be removed. But tariffs also create constituencies that benefit from them and will fight to preserve them, as they did during the Biden administration. And although removing tariffs on allies may generate bipartisan support, realistically, there are limits to what Congress can do to stop the president absent a veto-proof majority.

Ultimately, Americans’ confusion over what to do about tariffs is driven by a lack of clarity over alternatives and a lack of political will to turn the tide. Policymakers would be wise to carefully consider how they can force the president to back down on some tariffs—especially given their propensity to increase costs for Americans—but also to think about what future reforms could be made to existing laws to limit the president’s ability to impose tariffs in such an aimless fashion.

Until that happens, higher tariffs will likely remain a key feature of U.S. trade policy, whichever party prevails in next week’s midterms.