President Donald Trump’s approval has taken a “significant hit” since he announced new tariff policies on what he dubbed “Liberation Day” earlier this month, according to polling analyst Nate Silver.
Newsweek reached out to the White House for comment via email on Saturday.
Why It Matters
Trump’s tariff policies spurred significant market turmoil, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunging more than 2,200 points last Friday after dropping over 1,600 last Thursday. The stock market recovered somewhat this week, however, after Trump announced a 90-day pause on most tariffs on other countries, with the notable exception of the levies targeting China.
Trump has said tariffs are necessary to lower trade deficits and restore U.S. manufacturing.
Meanwhile, the University of Michigan’s preliminary consumer sentiment index, released Friday, dropped 11 percent from the previous month to 50.8—its lowest level since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also marks the second-lowest reading in data dating to 1952, with April’s figure falling below any level recorded during the Great Recession from December 2007 to June 2009.
What To Know
Silver, who founded the now-defunct 538 polling analysis site and now runs the Silver Bulletin on Substack, took to X, formerly Twitter, on Friday to highlight how much Trump’s approval rating appears to have dropped in recent days.
“In our tracking, Trump’s approval is at -5, but if we only used polls since Liberation Day, he’d be at -8.5 instead. So that’s a pretty significant hit over the span of barely more than a week; he was at -2.5 on 4/1, just before Liberation Day,” the analyst, who has been critical of Trump’s tariff policies, wrote.
In our tracking, Trump’s approval is at -5, but if we only used polls since Liberation Day, he’d be at -8.5 instead. So that’s a pretty significant hit over the span of barely more than a week; he was at -2.5 on 4/1, just before Liberation Day.https://t.co/msBapXv8sy pic.twitter.com/Mc3ujFFggF
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) April 11, 2025
Currently, the Silver Bulletin approval tracking for Trump, which was last updated on Friday, shows 45.6 percent approve of the president while 50.6 percent disapprove.
The site also highlights several recent individual polls carried out after Trump’s April 2 “Liberation Day” that show the president underwater in his approval rating, including Rasmussen at -5 percent, YouGov at -13 percent, Quinnipiac at -12 percent, Navigator Research at -9 percent and HarrisX at -2 percent.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
What People Are Saying
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt to reporters on Friday: “I think there is a great optimism in the economy and great reason for optimism for the American people. A lot of reason for people to feel optimistic. The president is trying to renegotiate the global trade agenda that has ripped off the American people for far too long.”
President Donald Trump on Truth Social on Friday: “We are doing really well on our TARIFF POLICY. Very exciting for America, and the World!!! It is moving along quickly.”
Former Biden administration Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on X on Thursday: “If you’re a billionaire, then you’ll barely notice a few thousand dollars a year in higher prices at the store from these Trump tariffs—plus you can count on him to get you another big tax break for the wealthy. But for everyone else, this is a big deal, and a bad one.”
What Happens Next?
Late Friday, in an update from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, there are tariff exemptions on a range of electronic products—including smartphones, computer monitors and various electronic parts.
The Trump administration announced its decision to pause tariffs targeting nations, besides China, for 90 days, as many nations are reportedly working to negotiate new trade deals and exemptions with the U.S.
