Poll: After first 100 days, Trump’s approval rating continues to crater as 57% say he’s ‘gone too far’ on tariffs

President Trump’s approval rating after 100 days back in office (42%) is 12 percentage points lower than Joe Biden’s was at the same stage of his presidency (54%), according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll.

The gap between Trump’s 100-day disapproval rating (53%) and Biden’s (37%) is even larger: 16 points.

The survey of 1,597 adults, which was conducted from April 25 to 28, can’t predict where Trump’s numbers will go next; in the second half of 2021, Biden’s approval rating slipped into the low 40s and never recovered.

But in terms of both history and trajectory, the new Yahoo News/YouGov poll contains nothing but bad news for the president. Trump’s current 100-day approval rating is tied (with his first-term number) for the lowest of any modern U.S. president; his 100-day disapproval rating is tied (again, with his first-term number) for the highest.

Typically, presidents enjoy positive approval ratings during their first few months in the White House. A full 62% of Americans approved of Richard Nixon at this point of his presidency, for instance, while just 15% disapproved; even more (65%) approved of Barack Obama.

Trump is the only president who has ever been “underwater” at the 100-day mark.

The new Yahoo News/YouGov survey also shows that Americans’ opinions of Trump are getting worse, not better. Immediately after Trump’s Nov. 5 election victory, 51% of Americans said they approved of the way he had handled his first term in office, while 43% said they disapproved. When asked now about how Trump is handling his second term, those numbers are effectively reversed.

The gap between Trump’s approval rating and disapproval rating has doubled — from -6 points to -11 points — over the last month alone.

And far more Americans say Trump’s presidential performance has been worse (44%) rather than better (28%) than they expected.

In April 2021, only 28% of Americans said Biden had been worse than they expected. Significantly more (39%) said he had been better.

Digging deeper into demographics, Trump seems to be shedding the most support among the same Americans who shifted toward him in the 2024 election: Latinos (down from

47% approval last November to 26% approval today), Americans aged 18 to 29 (down from 51% to 38%) and independents (down from 47% to 33%).

Why are Americans souring on Trump?

The simplest explanation for Trump’s cratering numbers is that his priorities don’t align with most Americans’.

Just 39% of U.S. adults now say the president is "focused on America's most important issues,” for instance, down from 43% in March; nearly half (48%) say he’s "focused on other, less important issues" (up from 45% last month).

A majority of independents (53%) agree that Trump’s focus is misplaced.

Asked whether they approve or disapprove of specific actions Trump has taken so far during his second term, Americans are even more negative:

Likewise, more Americans now disapprove than approve of how Trump is handling nearly every single issue that Yahoo News and YouGov ask about: government spending (by a 6-point margin); diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI (by a 9-point margin); the war between Russia and Ukraine (by a 14-point margin); and democracy (by a 15-point margin). The only exception is immigration, where Trump is above water by 2 percentage points (48% approve, 46% disapprove).

In each case, the president’s numbers have gotten two or three points worse since March.

Trump’s worst ratings, however, are reserved for his handling of the economy (36% approve, 56% disapprove) and the cost of living (31% approve, 59% disapprove). Even a quarter of 2024 Trump voters (25%) disapprove of how he’s handling the latter.

To put those numbers in perspective, Trump’s average approval rating on the economy was 49% in the middle of 2020 — at the height of the COVID-19 crash. His average disapproval rating was 45%.

Tariff trouble

On April 2 — immediately after the last Yahoo News/YouGov poll was published — Trump announced his long-awaited “Liberation Day” tariff plan: a new 10% minimum tax on all goods entering the U.S. from overseas plus much-larger-than-expected “reciprocal” levies on imports from major trading partners such as China, Japan and the European Union.

Trump has spent the month since then flip-flopping on many of these tariffs — while increasing taxes on Chinese imports to 145%.

More than anything else, the president’s efforts to rewire global trade seem to be hurting his standing with the American people. So far, their verdict on Trump’s tariffs has been resoundingly negative:

● 57% of Americans say Trump has “gone too far” in "raising tariffs on imported goods," while just 28% say his actions have been “about right.” A mere 4% say he has “not gone far enough.”

● 57% disapprove of Trump imposing 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico; just 27% approve.

● 56% disapprove of Trump imposing 145% tariffs on imports from China; just 29% approve.

● 53% disapprove of Trump imposing 25% tariffs on imported cars; just 32% approve.

● 49% disapprove of Trump imposing 10% tariffs on all imports into the U.S.; just 32%

approve).

● 58% say Trump's tariffs are having more of a negative effect on the economy "in the short term" (up from 51% in March); just 19% say they are having more of a positive effect.

● 69% mostly agree that the Trump tariffs "will increase the amount I personally pay for

goods and services."

● And 53% agree that the Trump tariffs "will cause a recession" (up from 49% in March).

Not everything about tariffs has been a net negative for Trump. Nearly twice as many Americans agree (49%) rather than disagree (27%) that "they will force other countries to cut trade deals that are more favorable to the U.S."; the responses to “they will force companies to make things in America rather than elsewhere" — 49% agree, 31% disagree — are similar.

But even so, Americans don’t expect the “long-term" impact of Trump’s tariffs to be more positive (34%) than negative (46%).

In the meantime, concern about prices — which tariffs tend to increase, according to experts — appear to be swamping everything else. Trump was elected in part because he vowed to lower inflation, and between 38% and 40% of registered voters named the cost of living as their most important issue on the Yahoo News/YouGov surveys conducted in the runup to Election Day.

But now 71% of Americans say the cost of groceries is increasing, up from 66% in March; 51% say the economy is getting worse, up from 47% in March; and 56% say the U.S. is either in a recession (28%) or headed for on (29%), up from 51% in March.

Asked to choose from a list of potential “threats to the future of the United States,” a full 59% of Americans pick the cost of living; the next threat on the list is China (45%), followed by tariffs themselves (44%).

As for Trump, 43% of Americans now say they see their own president as a threat, way ahead of Democrats (29%) and DEI (23%). When asked to select the “biggest” threat from the same list of options, more Americans choose Trump (27%) than anything else.

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The Yahoo News survey was conducted by YouGov using a nationally representative sample of 1,597 U.S. adults interviewed online from April 25 to 28, 2025. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, 2024 election turnout and presidential vote, party identification and current voter registration status. Demographic weighting targets come from the 2019 American Community Survey. Party identification is weighted to the estimated distribution at the time of the election (31% Democratic, 32% Republican). Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel to be representative of all U.S. adults. The margin of error is approximately 2.9%.