Are Americans angry with Trump’s tariffs?

The protests that have erupted across the United States against President Donald Trump’s policies – and not just the tariffs – seem to suggest the businessman-turned-president has lost his popularity which enabled him to win the presidential election in November 2024 for a second time.

Of course, Trump made no secret of what he intended to do if there was no clarity as to how he would do it. He promised to cut the size of government, but it was a surprise that he created an agency called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and got businessman and tycoon Elon Musk to head it.

Then he took swift action against immigrants, deporting them. He has not been able to deport all the illegal immigrants in the country, but he has made an example of the few whom he deported. For example, illegal immigrants were sent to a prison on El Salvador, and another batch of illegal immigrants was sent in an US Air Force place to India in chains.

Then he announced reciprocal tariffs against all countries which had been trading with the United States, resulting in absurd and comic results of making the poorest countries in Africa pay the highest tariffs. The other big thing is that he has closed the federal education department saying that it is for the states to decide what is to be taught in schools.

There is a pattern in all of these diverse acts of President Trump. He has taken attention-grabbing one-dimensional decisions, which attract public outcry, and this seems to give him immense satisfaction. So, the protests are against all of the policy decisions he has taken in the last two-and-a-half months, and most of the protesters that the London-based news agency spoken to were older citizens who were worried about the social security payments and their medical bills.

And there are the usual suspects – the liberals who oppose Trump and the Republicans with conviction and zeal. The liberals have sensed that ordinary Americans, who are more conservative in

the traditional sense than liberals, are both unhappy and angry with Trump’s policy antics. The protests would be much less effective if they include only the traditional anti-Trump, anti-Republican liberals. The protests are supposed to continue and if they gather momentum, and if more ordinary citizens who had voted for Trump as president last November come out against the president’s policies, then it means that Trump is losing ground. President Trump cannot be expected to do any kind of course correction because of the negative fallout of his decisions.

He is likely to stick to his positions rather than change them. More than the protests, it the state of the American economy which will push Trump into a corner. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has already indicated that the hiked tariffs could push up inflation. Trump’s tariffs would get implemented from April 10. But 10 per cent base tariff has already kicked in.

What Trump has accomplished is that he has raised a storm in the global markets, which could settle faster than expected. Trump is only too willing to bargain with other countries, and get some benefits for Americans buying global goods and services.

What is doubtful is whether Trump’s policies with achieve the emotive target of Making America Great Again (MAGA). American manufacturing is unlikely to revive because of the tariff protection that Trump has created. But it is a deeply-held conviction that Trump has held for more than 40 years – he said in an Oprah Winfrey interview in the 1980s that Americans are being cheated because of low tariffs which enabled other countries to sell in America – and it is unlikely to be shaken because it has failed on the ground.