A new AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll shows a sharp majority of Americans rejecting two of the signature foreign-policy moves of President Trump's second term: his sweeping use of tariffs and his administration's war with Iran. Only about 3 in 10 adults approve of how Trump is handling trade negotiations with other countries, down from roughly 4 in 10 in March, while 64% say he has "gone too far" in imposing new tariffs — up from 58% in January.
The Iran war fares little better. Just 28% of Americans approve of Trump's handling of the conflict, and 69% say the war has not been worth fighting, a view that has hardened slightly since July. Fred Naumann, a 51-year-old Republican and longtime Trump supporter in Green Bay, Wisconsin, told the pollsters he backs both the tariffs and the Iran war as necessary, even as he said he would like to see interest rates come down.
Trade and war feed a broader economic verdict
The foreign-policy numbers are compounding a wider slide in Trump's approval on the economy, which has dropped to 26% — a new low and a 14-point fall from March 2025, shortly after he took office. A majority of adults, 65%, now say they blame Trump's own policies for persistently high prices rather than factors beyond his control, a reversal from the pattern seen during President Biden's comparable approval slump in 2022, when only 44% of Americans assigned Biden's policies the blame.
Some Republican voters interviewed by the AP connected the dots between the administration's trade and military posture and their own household budgets. "This war in Iran, the tariffs that he's placing on other countries, obviously are affecting us," said Pedro Sanchez, a 52-year-old Trump voter and law enforcement officer in Perris, California. "Those two things are things he's been directly involved in that directly affect the economy."
Kristen Slaven, a 41-year-old Mississippi Republican who typically votes for Trump, was more pointed about priorities. "Obviously wars don't help. When they're necessary, I understand," she said. "But our focus on renaming bodies of water and pieces of land, that's just stupid to me when people can't feed their family."
A midterm-season warning sign
The findings land weeks before midterm elections that will decide control of Congress, with Trump campaigning aggressively and asking supporters to treat the vote as a referendum on him personally. Despite the grim trade and Iran numbers, a majority of Republicans, 67%, still say factors outside Trump's control bear more responsibility for high prices than his own policy choices — a sign that even skeptical GOP voters have not fully broken with the administration's broader economic narrative.
The AP-NORC poll surveyed 2,140 adults from Sept. 24-28, drawing on NORC's probability-based AmeriSpeak panel, with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.