Most U.S. adults disapprove of Trump's trade policies, poll finds

Most U.S. adults disapprove of President Donald Trump's trade policies, with more than 64 per cent saying he has gone too far with his latest tariffs, a recent poll shows.

The poll suggests the president's stance is a big gamble with less than a month before the Nov. 3 midterm elections.

Trump holds fast to his belief that imposing the highest import duties on U.S. trading partners since the Great Depression is a winner, despite higher prices, criticism from trade experts and displeasure among voters.

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The United States has set taxes on imports from most countries in the low double digits, although the rates have gone up and down because of legal setbacks as well as Trump's habit of changing them seemingly on a whim.

In the biggest round last year, Trump levied what he called "reciprocal" tariffs and other duties on dozens of countries.

After the Supreme Court struck down his initial legal justification in February, Trump turned to an array of other trade laws to accomplish his goals.

The primary one he is using now, Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, allows him to impose tariffs on countries that he believes are engaging in unfair trade practices, such as not adequately enforcing a ban on forced labour.

The new duties range from 10 per cent to 12.5 per cent on imports from 60 economies, including big U.S. trading partners such as the European Union, India, Japan, Canada and Mexico.

Trump is taking a sledgehammer to a relatively open global trading system that many mainstream economists think has benefited the U.S. enormously.

Although Trump claims foreign exporters are paying tariffs, it is mostly Americans who are footing the bill.

Studies, including ones from New York Fed and Harvard, have shown that overseas companies have largely not lowered their prices to offset the tariffs that U.S. businesses pay at the border.

Those businesses are absorbing the added costs or passing them along to consumers through higher prices.

The White House responds that the factory boom is already under way and points to statistics showing that manufacturing jobs, after falling last year, are on the upswing and work in certain non-residential construction trades is rising, too.

"Factory construction jobs of today mean more manufacturing jobs down the road once those factories come online," said White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers.

It also is true that some countries have higher tariffs than the U.S., manipulate their currencies lower to ensure to make their exports to the U.S. cheaper and help industries with subsidies.

But tariffs among U.S. major trading partners are low, often comparable to U.S. rates and sometimes lower.

Before the trade war, the U.S. rate averaged 1.47 per cent for goods from the European Union, slightly above the average 1.35 per cent imposed by the EU on American products, according to the Brussels think tank Bruegel.

The relationship with Canada, America's big trading partner to the north, was also similar before trade talks broke down this summer.

Canada's effective tariff rate on U.S. imports was about 2.4 per cent, less than half the 5 per cent that the U.S. had on Canadian imports, according to calculations by Oxford Economics.

Now the countries are mired in a tit-for-tat dispute, with both countries escalating tariffs on each other.

Yadude Books reported in October that exports to the United States surged 8.1 per cent in August ahead of new American tariffs that took effect Aug. 22.

With files from The Globe and Mail