Over the past two weeks, Donald Trump’s sweeping new tariffs — announced with typical fanfare on April 2 as ‘Liberation Day’ —posed one of the starkest political tests of his second term so far: could he still defy political gravity and push through economic backlash while maintaining the unwavering support of his die-hard loyal base?
For a moment, the answer seemed to be yes.
Mr. Trump’s declaration of a 10% universal tariff on all imports, combined with a staggering 145% tariff on Chinese goods, triggered global financial turbulence, panic on Wall Street, and retaliatory tariffs from Beijing escalating a trade war. As analysts warned of a looming recession — with Goldman Sachs placing the risk at 45% — the President seemed to double down on his decision, telling Americans that short-term pain was a necessary sacrifice for long-term economic sovereignty.
But by April 9, amid a dramatic sell-off in U.S. bonds and a five-point drop in Mr. Trump’s approval ratings, the President abruptly hit pause. In a partial reversal, he delayed most of the new tariffs he announced for 90 days, excluding the harsh levies on China. While the markets showed signs of stabilising slightly, the political damage had been done.
Within the Republican party, responses were fractured, blending steadfast loyalty with rising alarm over inflation, supply chain disruptions, and the global perception of America’s unpredictability.
Even among MAGA loyalists, the tariffs drew scrutiny. Elon Musk, the billionaire Trump donor now leading the U.S. DOGE department’s charge to shrink government spending, raised opposition and argued against the tariffs sparking a public spat with one of the President’s economic advisers, Peter Navarro, calling him a “moron” and “dumber than a sack of bricks”.
A vocal supporter and hedge fund mogul, Bill Ackman, too, warned Mr. Trump of a “self-induced economic nuclear winter”, urging the President to reconsider.
“Business is a confidence game. The President is losing the confidence of business leaders around the globe,” Mr. Ackman posted on X after the tariff announcement, but soon after the pause was announced, he hailed the move, calling it “textbook, Art of the Deal.”
The discontent even spread to the influencer community that helped gain Mr. Trump’s popularity with a legion of young supporters during his 2024 campaign, including podcaster Barstool Sports’ David Portnoy, who claimed to have lost $20 million after Mr. Trump introduced his latest tariffs. In his podcast, he speculated his worth had gone down by 10 to 15%, saying, “If I had to guess, I’m down in these last three days probably close to [$20 million].”
“But I’m still here. That’s the game,” he added. “Do I like it? No. Am I crying like, ‘Oh, woe is me, I wish I voted for Kamala,’ no.”
Discontent on the right
Throughout his career, Mr. Trump has championed tariffs as a tool to revive American manufacturing, viewing tariffs and trade as a matter of fairness and patriotism.
Even during his campaign last year, he called for a 10% baseline tariff on almost all imports, threatened far higher rates in other circumstances and declared “tariff” to be “the most beautiful word in the dictionary”.
But the rollout of the 2025 tariffs was messy. Within hours of the ‘Liberation Day’ announcement, global markets reacted with panic. U.S. farmers faced immediate threats from China’s retaliatory 125% tariffs on American goods. .
The United States exported $143.5 billion of goods to China last year and imported $438.9 billion from that country, according to the Office of the United States Trade Representative.
For decades, American agriculture has depended on exports and imported tools and fertiliser. “More than 20% of farm income comes from exports,” the American Farm Bureau warned in a statement on April 2. “These tariffs will drive up input costs and devastate access to foreign markets.”
Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro slammed the rollout as “about as bad as you can do,” in a video podcast released by him. “The idea that this is inherently good and makes the American economy strong is wrongheaded,” Shapiro told his audience. “It’s untrue.”
Still, some GOP lawmakers stood by the President. Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, Rep. Glenn Thompson, called the tariffs “an effective tool for fair trade,” pointing to how past threats had yielded concessions from countries like Colombia.
Others, however, showed signs of unease. Behind closed doors, key allies pressed Mr. Trump to reconsider. Capitol Hill, too, began to show signs of fracture.
Several Republican senators joined the Democrats backing the Trade Review Act, a bipartisan Bill sponsored by Democrats that could strip away the President’s power to slap tariffs without congressional consent, signalling Mr. Trump’s grip on his party may be loosening.
Party split
“The Republican Party appears to be split on its reaction to the Trump administration’s tariffs. While they publicly applaud the President, privately, some are worried. With every member of the House of Representatives up for re-election next year, members in close districts are nervous that the administration’s policies will upset their constituents, opening space for the Democrats to win in those districts,” said David Richards, associate professor and chair of the International Relations and Political Science Department at the University of Lynchburg.
“Already, district meetings held by some members have been confrontational as government cuts begin to affect people. The key will be whether the economy does not slip into recession or worse. However, with the administration seemingly changing its policies on a daily basis, party members are unsure how to explain things to the voters,” he added.
Dip in ratings
Following the “Liberation Day” market chaos, public approval for the President dipped immediately. Mr. Trump’s approval rating fell to 43%, the lowest since his return to office, as Americans soured on his tariff moves and his administration’s handling of information about a military strike in Yemen, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found.
A Quinnipiac University survey released on April 9 found Americans widely sceptical of Mr. Trump’s tariff campaign. And an Economist/YouGov survey found a five-point spike in disapproval of Mr. Trump’s job performance, to 51%, after the tariff announcement.
“I know what the hell I’m doing,” Mr. Trump told a gathering of House Republicans the night before announcing the pause of the reciprocal tariffs, bragging that countries are lining up to make trade deals. The U.S. President was speaking to political donors at the National Republican Congressional Committee’s annual fundraising dinner in Washington.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent later framed the 90-day pause as a strategic masterstroke: “This was his strategy all along,” he claimed, citing calls from over 75 countries requesting negotiations.
Just hours after urging freaked-out investors and voters to “BE COOL” on Truth Social media, Mr. Trump suddenly reversed course on April 9, pausing some of his sweeping tariffs for 90 days.
“Everything is going to work out well. The USA will be bigger and better than ever before!” he wrote.
Following a week of market turmoil that rippled from stocks to crucial government bonds, Mr. Trump’s announcement on the pause came abruptly but was not surprising.
Critics argue that it was investors offloading U.S. debt and demanding a high premium for buying U.S. Treasuries that compelled Mr. Trump to take the call. “The bond market is tricky,” Mr. Trump admitted to presspersons after adjusting his tariff policy. “I saw last night where people were getting a little queasy… jumping a little bit,” he said.
Mr. Richards, of the University of Lynchburg, also noted that the Democrats were capitalising on the “economic chaos.”
“An important bellwether election will be the upcoming 2025 gubernatorial race in Virginia. Virginia is currently run by a popular Republican Governor who is not permitted to run again due to term limits. The problem is that the Democratic candidate is polling well ahead of the Republican one. The Democratic Party in Virginia is already running ads highlighting the economic chaos caused so far by the Trump administration, tying it back to the Republican Party. How well the GOP does in Virginia might preview how well they do in 2026,” he said.
Trade war with China
Mr. Trump announced his first “trade war” in 2018 during his first term as President with tariffs on China, leading China to retaliate by limiting purchases of agricultural products. This is not the first time Mr. Trump has asked his supporters for patience.
American soybean farmers still haven’t recovered from losing one of their biggest markets in China during Mr. Trump’s first term, and for cattle ranchers especially, the tariffs will likely result in the loss of one of their biggest customers—they sold $1.6 billion worth of beef to China last year.
“Our farmers are GREAT, but because of their GREATNESS, they are always put on the Front Line with our adversaries, such as China, whenever there is a Trade negotiation or, in this case, a Trade War,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social on Tuesday. “The same thing happened in my First Term,” he added, pointing to the $28 billion he spent bailing out farmers from his first trade war with China.
The American Farm Bureau has warned increased tariffs could threaten the economic sustainability of farmers.
“Trade is critical to the success of farmers and ranchers across the country. We share the administration’s goal of levelling the playing field with our international partners, but increased tariffs threaten the economic sustainability of farmers who have lost money on most major crops for the past three years,” they said in the April 2 statement.
Whether this tariff pause for all but China will extend beyond the initial 90 days Mr. Trump earmarked remains to be seen, but the change in tone signalled a rare admission of boundaries — imposed by the markets, politics, and even his own allies.
(Anisha Dutta is a freelance journalist based in New York.)
Published – April 18, 2025 05:00 am IST