Trump’s Popularity Plunges on Tariff Imbroglio

Donald Trump’s second-term 100-day mark is shaping up to be a disaster. His administration is falling apart faster than anyone imagined — scandals, internal wars, and public embarrassments are mounting by the day. Trump promised economic revival on Day 1. Instead, Americans got chaos: tariffs choking trade, a whipsawing stock market, and grocery bills punching holes in their wallets. Nearly 100 days in, nothing is getting better — and everyone’s losing patience.

Support is crumbling across the board. Working families. Billionaires. Business leaders. Trump’s approval just slid to 39% in a Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll — the worst 100-day number for any president since FDR’s third term. Rather than stabilize the economy, Trump is steering it straight toward crisis. Confidence in America’s financial system is cracking. Fear is setting in. Voters see a leader out of touch and out of ideas.

In 2024, millions backed Trump out of frustration with inflation and fond memories of pre-pandemic prosperity. What they got instead: policies almost designed to make prices worse, to break supply chains, to slam small businesses, and to flirt with recession. Trump is hellbent on remaking the U.S. economy in the image of a long-gone industrial era — using tariffs like sledgehammers to smash global trade deals. He claims it’ll bring back jobs and riches. So far, it’s mostly brought chaos.

The damage is everywhere: Stock markets wiped out trillions. Airlines slashing routes. Retailers abandoning China-made goods. Walmart warning of a supply chain meltdown by summer. The IMF slashing growth forecasts. Businesses halting hiring.

Meanwhile, Trump plays golf and shrugs off the wreckage. His unilateral use of emergency powers to wage economic warfare is not just reckless — it’s probably illegal. But Trump sees no limits. In his mind, the U.S. is a victim, and only brute force can fix it. No allies. No partnerships. Just America muscling smaller nations into submission.

This scorched-earth “America First” doctrine isn’t just killing trade deals. It’s ripping up the postwar system that kept the world stable for 80 years — and Trump considers that a win. Now, with his thin skin, inflated ego, and blind faith in his economic genius, Trump is playing chicken with the entire U.S. economy. Millions of jobs, families, and businesses are caught in the middle.

Economy wobbles under Trump as Costs Crush Americans. Leading economists are sounding the alarm: a recession could be looming, and millions of Americans are drowning under sky-high gas prices, exploding grocery bills, and crushing credit card and car debt.

Business leaders are begging for stable policy. Farmers are watching federal contracts dry up. Nonprofits are slashing staff as the White House cuts spending to the bone. Trump’s tariffs are fuelling the chaos, driving up costs across the board. Businesses are already passing the pain onto consumers, who are rushing to buy big-ticket items before prices climb even higher.

The stock market has been a roller coaster under Trump — and not the fun kind. It's down about 9% since he took office, erasing billions from saving and retirement accounts across the country. Yet many of his supporters are still standing by him.

In Chattanooga, 28-year-old Trump voter James Marlin says he’s feeling the heat of price rise while shopping in Walmart. He pays at least 15$ more every trip for grocery shopping.  He said that he was sad that Brazilian immigrants, a big part of the city’s workforce, are being deported. Many, he said, were friends.

Trump promised a lot: end inflation on Day 1, slash energy bills in a year, lower food prices immediately. “When I win, I will immediately bring prices down,” he bragged during the campaign. It hasn’t happened.

Instead, the Yale Budget Lab now predicts the average household will shell out an extra $3,800 this year — mostly thanks to tariffs hitting food and clothing. Add a shaken stock market, soaring car and home prices, stubborn grocery costs, and you get a grim reality: Americans are sitting on a record $18 trillion in household debt, and it’s only getting heavier.

Billionaires Turning Against Trump

Billionaire investor Bill Ackman, who had endorsed Trump’s 2024 presidential bid, warned that going ahead with the new tariffs was tantamount to launching an “economic nuclear war.”

In a post on X, Ackman said “Business investment will grind to a halt, (and) consumers will close their wallets” if the new levies do indeed come into force. “We will severely damage our reputation with the rest of the world that will take years and potentially decades to rehabilitate,” he added in the post, which was viewed 10.6 million times.

Unless Trump changes tack, “We are heading for a self-induced, economic nuclear winter, and we should start hunkering down,” the CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management warned.

“What CEO and what board of directors will be comfortable making large, long-term economic commitments in our country in the middle of an economic nuclear war?” he said, adding that “the president is losing the confidence of business leaders around the globe.”

Other billionaires and wealthy business leaders have also openly criticized Trump’s tariff agenda in recent days as fear over its economic fallout gripped markets.

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, warned that the tariffs threatened to raise prices, drive the global economy into a downturn and weaken America’s standing in the world.

“The recent tariffs will likely increase inflation and are causing many to consider a greater probability of a recession,” Dimon said in an annual letter to his shareholders. “Whether or not the menu of tariffs causes a recession remains in question, but it will slow down growth.”

Billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller, founder of the Duquesne Family Office, an investment firm, said in a post on X Monday that he did “not support tariffs exceeding 10%.”  Druckenmiller is worth an estimated $11 billion. 

Billionaire Ken Fisher, the founder and executive chairman of Fisher Investments, came out against Trump. Fisher noted that he does not typically comment publicly on presidential actions, “but on tariffs Trump is beyond the pale by a long shot.”

He said on X: “What Trump unveiled (last) Wednesday is stupid, wrong, arrogantly extreme, ignorant trade-wise and addressing a non-problem with misguided tools. Yet, as near as I can tell it will fade and fail and the fear is bigger than the problem, which from here is bullish.”