Trump is making foreign liberals, free trade and immigrants great again

Washington Post

05-05-2025

For the second time in a matter of days, President Donald Trump's bull-in-a-China-shop routine on the world stage appears to have spurred liberals to a big comeback win in a key ally's elections.
First came Canada, where liberals surged thanks to an anti-Trump, anti-tariff and anti- '51st state' backlash — one that had the conservative leader squirming to distance himself from Trump. Then this past weekend came Australia, where liberals also overturned a significant deficit from earlier this year and won in a landslide.
In short, it seems Trump is making foreign liberals great again.
But we can say that about other things, too, including domestic affairs. On several key issues, Trump's brazen second-term actions appear to be pushing Americans in the opposite direction of his early agenda just like he did the electorates of Canada and Australia.
These include free trade, immigration, Ukraine and checks and balances.
We saw this kind of 'thermostatic' effect in Trump's first term — especially when it came to sympathy for the immigrants that Trump has often demonized. But not like this.
Free trade is a case in point. New data from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs set to be released publicly Monday shows a sudden surge in support for global free trade, even as Trump has sought to rein it in through his global tariffs. The poll gave people three options, two of which were to 'pursue a policy of global free trade' and to 'reduce international trade and seek greater self-sufficiency.' The latter is in line with Trump's tariff's approach.
But Americans suddenly prefer the former approach — by a lot. While just last year they preferred to reduce international trade by six points, they now prefer global free trade by 26 points. Support for global free trade has shot up from 35 percent in June 2024 to 55 percent today.
Even Republicans have trended somewhat toward free trade (34 percent). (A 51 percent majority, though, remain in favor of reduced trade.)
The poll also showed the percentages of people who said international trade was good for creating jobs (70 percent) and their own standards of living (84 percent) hitting new highs not seen since at least 2004.
This isn't the only poll to suggest a sudden embrace of free trade amid Trump's tariff war.
Recent data published by the Financial Times shows a similar surge in 'strong' support for free trade — a surge that clearly coincides with Trump's election and inauguration. And Gallup data last month showed the percentage of those who described international trade as an 'opportunity for economic growth' rather than a 'threat' increasing by about 20 points from last year.
The 81 percent who viewed international trade as a positive was the highest since at least the early 1990s.
As for the other issues?
Pro-immigrant sentiment appears to be returning, as Trump wages a deportation campaign that has repeatedly been halted by the courts.
Economist-YouGov polling throughout the 2024 campaign showed more Americans said immigrants made us 'worse off' than 'better off.' They now prefer 'better off' by double digits, 40-29. And the shift happened almost immediately after Trump was inaugurated.
(It's not totally clear this is all about Trump effect. For instance, illegal border crossings had plunged in 2024 and have continued to do so early in Trump's presidency. So perhaps people just aren't as concerned about illegal immigration. And Trump has won high marks from the public on the issue of border security. But polls have also shown Americans strongly disagree with some of Trump's deportation policies and view them as too harsh.)
It also seems to be happening with support for Ukraine.
Trump has long declined to forcefully back Ukraine over Russia. And with his administration pressuring Ukraine to make major concessions to end the war, Gallup showed the percentage of Americans who said we're doing 'not enough' to support Ukraine rising from 30 percent in December to 46 percent in March.
That 46 percent 'not enough' figure was the highest it has been at any point in the war.
And finally is a sudden apparent surge in support for checks and balances.
Trump has attempted a series of extraordinary power grabs aimed at increasing his authority. He has largely sidelined the Republican-controlled Congress and attacked the courts that have stood in his way — including Republican-appointed judges. But as that's happened, Americans have suddenly expressed a desire for a more reined-in president.
In March 2024, just 32 percent of Americans in AP-NORC polling said the president had too much power in U.S. government today. That number has shot up 22 points, to 54 percent.
Meanwhile, the percentages who said Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court had too much power have both dropped by double-digits.
So much of what Trump has done early in his tenure has been unpopular — often even more unpopular than he is. And it's apparently not just the policies; it's also the general tenor of his actions.
Canadians and Australians seemed to want different approaches, and in many ways Americans do too.