Trump's base backs his trade war. But even MAGA wants a resolution ‘sooner rather than later.'

Politico

19-04-2025

Some Republicans are putting an expiration date on how long they'll tolerate the economic fallout from Donald Trump's trade war.
For now, they're eager to extend the president time to reshape the U.S. economy – and they're prepared to stomach higher costs as a consequence of steep tariffs on trading partners.
But interviews with nearly three dozen Republican leaders and operatives in seven battlegrounds — from party chairs to strategists to state lawmakers — reveal a growing acknowledgement that economic shocks could hamper the party's prospects in the midterms. While many say they are strapping in for as long as it takes, several state party strategists and leaders predicted voters' patience with higher prices would last no longer than into summer, while others suggested he has a runway of about a year.
'No one is surprised, as Donald Trump has talked about unfair trade practices across the world for 30 years,' said Wisconsin House Speaker Robin Vos, who said he has started to pay tariffs on his own food packaging business. 'He talked about reciprocal tariffs literally since the day he was elected. But the hope is that the idea of enacting the tariffs will result in zero at the end, and that's where I think most people are optimistic to hopefully get it done sooner rather than later.'
Or as Jonathan Felts, a North Carolina GOP consultant, put it, 'If the economy just completely tanks, then it's Political Science 101 that the incumbent is in trouble.'
While Felts said that 'a lot of people are willing to shoulder some short term pain,' he cautioned that 'when early voting starts, if you're going to McDonald's and there's no dollar menu left, that's a problem.'
Trump's trade agenda has already rattled Washington and Wall Street, and it is also beginning to take a political toll. Trump's job approval ratings, exceeding 50 percent when he first took office,
are now underwater
. The public's mood about the economy has soured, with a majority of Americans in an
Economist/YouGov Poll this week saying the economy is getting worse
. Trump is
warring with Jerome Powell after the Federal Reserve chair warned tariffs will likely drive up prices
.
And even among Republican voters — who have stuck with Trump through criminal indictments, impeachment proceedings and his defeat in 2020 — Trump is showing some signs of weakness. In the YouGov survey, 85 percent of Republicans approved of the job Trump is doing, down 5 percentage points from the previous week.
None of that is going unnoticed among Republicans in the battlegrounds. But the Republican leaders who spoke with POLITICO say the base for now remains fully behind the president's agenda.
'I've just seen price increases under Biden for four years with no end goal, at least this time there's a method to the madness,' said Todd Gillman, a Michigan Republican Party precinct chair. 'There's a pot of gold at the end of it.'
The White House's aggressive posture on a range of issues, including trade, is what Republicans voted for.
Still, Gillman, who described himself as a strong supporter of Trump's trade agenda, said that if the economy doesn't improve within a year, 'we're going to get slack in the midterms.' Vos, who describes himself as a 'free trader,' said he hopes deals will be struck with countries before the end of Trump's 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs he imposed on most U.S. trade partners.
That view is broadly shared by local and state Republican leaders. Many cited the White House's claim that more than 100 counties have expressed interest in renegotiating trade deals with the U.S. as proof that Trump's strategy is working — and dismissed any criticism that the White House's trade agenda has been executed carelessly.
Rather, they argue Trump has set the country on an upward trajectory by shattering longstanding trade relationships and escalating tensions with China. Their confidence in the White House comes even amid a brewing political backlash against the tariffs on Capitol Hill and warnings from economists that tariffs on China will hike prices of items like clothing, toys and electronics. Republicans are convinced that wild volatility in the market will subside and that prices, if they escalate again, will soon return to normal.
'If we can withstand 'shock and awe', it is my belief that the outcome will be very positive,' said Alex McColman, chair of the Lee County Republican Party in Georgia. 'Trump has a tough job and if all parties involved can join in, then we will win this chess match with countries that have been taking great advantage of the U.S.'
Several GOP leaders who spoke with POLITICO were reluctant to put Trump on any sort of timeline for when voters should expect to see the economy surge. They blamed former President Joe Biden or others for economic problems so complex they said it's unreasonable to expect a turnaround anytime soon.
On top of that, many are taking a recent drop in gas and egg prices as a sign that Trump is steering the economy in the right direction, even as those prices were impacted by a range of variables outside the president's control, such as oil production levels and bird flu outbreaks.
'It's not like turning a canoe, it's like turning a battleship,' said Michigan Republican Party Chair Jim Runestad. 'So it's not as simple as one lever is going to make all these changes. They're going to give him a big breadth of time to make sure that we fix this thing that is otherwise going to collapse.'
In Pennsylvania, Trump's tariffs hold promise for workers in the cratered out steel industry, said Pennsylvania state Sen. Greg Rothman. He described Trump taking on countries dumping steel into the U.S. as 'worse than ripping a bandaid off.'
'Our industry has been dying for the last fifty years, so it was going to take sort of a more radical approach,' Rothman said.
For Jesse Willard, chair of the Decatur County Republican Party in Georgia, Trump's campaign pledge to again enact steep tariffs on foreign countries was one of the reasons he voted for him. An employee for a defense manufacturing firm, Willard said he's hopeful Trump will restore the sector to what it once was when he first started working in it in the 1980s.
'In the short term it's going to be a little bit painful, but I'd much rather buy American than anything else,' Willard said.
But the pain can't last forever, he said.
'If it takes six months, a year you may see a little bit of people grumbling a little,' Willard said. 'But if it takes more than a couple years, you're going to see people not being OK with that.'