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WASHINGTON — President Trump’s approval ratings have taken a downturn as he nears the end of his first 100 days in office — with majorities of Americans knocking his handling of the economy and foreign policy but giving him more credit on immigration issues, according to recent polls.
A Fox News survey released Wednesday found that 59% of American voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of inflation, 58% are against his tariffs, 56% dislike his economic moves, 53% are not keen on his tax agenda, 54% don’t favor his foreign policy actions and 48% scorn his stance on immigration.
In one bright spot for the administration, 55% of US voters agreed with Trump’s move to beef up border security, while just 40% disapproved of it.
By contrast, 47% back Trump’s immigration policies, 40% like his foreign policy, 38% are in favor of his economic agenda, including taxes, and 33% support his tariffs and actions against inflation.
Overall, the 47th president has lost five percentage points off his job performance rating in the Fox poll since March, sinking from 49% to 44% — below what predecessors Joe Biden (54%), Barack Obama (62%) and George W. Bush (63%) enjoyed at the same point in their terms.
In April 2017, the Fox survey found Trump with a 45% overall approval rating.
The Trump administration has been pursuing with mixed success the deportation of criminal and terror group-affiliated migrants in the US, peace negotiations in the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas wars, a massive renewal of his 2017 tax bill with spending cuts and other rate reductions heaped on and tariffs on US friends and foes alike — all of which are issues he ran on and several of which were implemented via executive order.
Mass deportations have also pitted Trump’s Justice Department against federal courts over cases brought by migrants who claim they were wrongly deported pursuant to the president’s invocation of an 18th century war-time authority.
The polling figures are a blow to the “mandate” Trump claimed he won in the 2024 election against Vice President Kamala Harris, though the 47th president has improved somewhat upon Biden’s numbers at the conclusion of his term.
As many as 68% of American voters were dissatisfied with Biden when he left the Oval Office, compared with the 59% who said the same about Trump now.
The Fox survey showed that those voters still remain very concerned about high consumer prices (82%), political divisions within the US (78%), runaway government spending (73%), the economy going into a recession (72%) and immigration (66%).
It also revealed high concerns about Iran getting a nuclear weapon (66%), an escalating trade war with China over tariffs (66%) and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (61%), which has sparked a more than three-year-war.
After being sworn in Jan. 20, Trump declared his second term would begin a “golden age of America” and an end to “a radical and corrupt establishment has extracted power and wealth from our citizens while the pillars of our society lay broken and seemingly in complete disrepair.”
“My recent election is a mandate to completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal and all of these many betrayals that have taken place and to give the people back their faith, their wealth, their democracy and indeed, their freedom,” he said during his inaugural address at the US Capitol.
Even Republicans are feeling less encouraged about the next four years under Trump than they were during his first term, with 75% looking forward to the future optimistically in 2025 versus 84% in 2017.
The Fox News survey was conducted via landline phones, cellphones and online among 1,104 registered voters between April 18 and 21, with the help of the Democratic firm Beacon Research and the Republican firm Shaw & Company Research.
Its margin of error is plus or minus three percentage points.
Trump took to Truth Social following the release of the Fox survey and lashed out at its chief pollster Dana Blanton, who he claimed had “gotten me, and MAGA, wrong for years.”
But other surveys conducted this month have shown a similar decline in optimism among Americans about Trump making good on his promises in the wake of his electoral victory.
An Economist/YouGov poll conducted April 19-22 of US adults registered 54% disapproval and 41% approval of the president, with majorities also shredding his administration’s economic (53%) and foreign policy (53%) priorities as well as half (50%) disapproving on immigration.
An April 10-14 poll from AtlasIntel also registered a majority of Americans’ disapproval with Trump’s job performance (52%), which went underwater between February and March, per earlier surveys. Just 46% currently approve.
That poll also showed net-negative ratings for Trump’s handling of the economy (-14%), taxes (-13%), the war in Ukraine (-12%), job growth (-11%), and the war between Hamas and Israel (-10%).
The Post reached out to the White House for comment.
English (US)