WSJ What’s News - Most Voters Oppose Trump’s Tariffs, But His Supporters Are Still Behind Him

Episode Date: April 4, 2025

P.M. Edition for April 4. A Wall Street Journal poll shows that most voters were already souring on President Trump’s handling of the economy even before Wednesday’s raft of tariffs. WSJ reporter and editor Aaron Zitner joins us to discuss the poll results. Plus, a 2,200-point drop in the Dow ends a brutal week for U.S. stocks. Krystal Hur, who covers markets for the Journal, breaks down what happened. And Trump signs an executive order granting a 75-day extension to work out details on a potential deal to keep TikTok operating in the U.S. Alex Ossola hosts. Your New Lunch Habit Is Hurting the Economy  Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With the Fizz loyalty program, you get rewarded just for having a mobile plan. You know, for texting and stuff. And if you're not getting rewards like extra data and dollars off with your mobile plan, you're not with Fizz. Switch today. Conditions apply. Details at fizz.ca. U.S. stocks plunge as China hits back with 34 percent tariffs while oil prices tumble. as China hits back with 34% tariffs, while oil prices tumble. Plus, Fed Chair Jerome Powell warns of weaker economic growth after the tariff hikes. And a new Wall Street Journal poll finds that voters soured on Trump's economic plans

even before Wednesday's raft of new tariffs. Donald Trump has done so much in the first two and a half months of his new term that it's hard to keep track of it all, and voters are still scrambling to catch up with some of it. It's Friday, April 4th. I'm Alex Osela for The Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today. A sharp rise in trade war intensity sent Wall Street spiraling today. China's decision

to apply a 34% levy to all imported goods from the U.S. rattled markets in part because it further deflated hopes that a global settlement could be reached soon. Investors rushed into treasuries pushing 10-year yields well below 4% before they drifted back up later. Oil prices slid further, with benchmark U.S. crude falling to about $62 a barrel. All major U.S. indexes dropped today, ending a brutal week. The Dow fell more than 2,200 points, closing down 5.5% lower today.

It's down about 15% from its recent high, putting it in correction territory. The Nasdaq dropped 5.8%, pushing it into a bear market, which denotes a 20% decline from its peak. And the S&P 500 slid nearly 6%. The stock market has shed $6.6 trillion in the past two sessions. That's a new record, beating even the $4.4 trillion shed in March 2020. I'm joined now by Crystal Herr, who covers markets for the Journal.

Well, Crystal, another day, another mess in the markets. What happened today? Crystal Herr So we saw a lot of investors really scared by the fact that China said that it is going to retaliate against the U.S. with a 34% levy on its own on all imported goods from the U.S. So we saw this hit the stock market really hard. We saw the S&P 500 drop 6%, the Nasdaq sliding about 6% as well. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell about 2,000 points. And we saw this hit across the market. It was a really widespread, brutal attack on markets. Yesterday we saw the Magnificent 7 really take a hit.

How'd they fare today? Not so great. They have lost about $1.6 trillion of market cap this week, which is a pretty sharp about face from the last two years. We had seen these stocks really be at the forefront of the bull market rally. But now we're seeing that a lot of these stocks are actually down quite a bit with double digit percentage losses for the year. So this has been two pretty rough days for the market. What can we expect on Monday?

I'm not too sure. That's sort of the question on everyone's minds right now. A lot of people say that this has been totally unprecedented. They think that this could be the beginning of sort of a new regime for markets where that bull market rally that we've seen for the past two years is unlikely to jumpstart again anytime soon. That was WSJ reporter Crystal Herr. Thank you, Crystal. Thanks. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warned of higher prices and weaker growth after President Trump's tariff hikes.

While uncertainty remains elevated, it is now becoming clear that tariff increases will be significantly larger than expected. And the same is likely to be true of the economic effects, which will include higher inflation and slower growth. The size and duration of these effects remains uncertain. While tariffs are highly likely to generate at least a temporary rise in inflation, it's also possible that the effects could be more persistent. In remarks in Virginia, Powell indicated that the central bank was still comfortable with

its wait-and-see stance. While he acknowledged that risks of weaker growth had increased, he said it was too soon to say how the Fed would adjust interest rates to cushion the economy from the blow of weaker global trade. Ahead of Powell's remarks, President Trump posted on Truth Social, saying he hoped the Fed would cut interest rates. There was a glimmer of hope that initial public offerings in the U.S. were about to return. Now that hope is gone, as multiple companies are scuttling their plans to go public as the tariff turmoil freezes the IPO market. People familiar with the matter say that ticketing marketplace StubHub and buy-now-pay-later

company Klarna are postponing their IPO roadshows, which were set to kick off next week. Some of those people also said that another fintech company, Chime, is pushing off filing its financials publicly with regulators and is delaying its IPO. And they said that virtual physical therapy company Hinge Health is watching the market before its anticipated late April offering. Meanwhile, Crypto Company Circle had been nearing its next steps in going public, but some of the people said the company is now watching anxiously before deciding what to do. Employers added jobs in March at a much stronger pace than expected. The Labor

Department said today that the US added 228,000 jobs last month, well above the gain of 140,000 jobs that economists expected. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate, which is based on a separate survey from the jobs figures, ticked up to 4.2% as more people entered the labor force. For more on what these numbers mean, I'm joined by WSJ Economics correspondent Harriet Tory. Harriet, the labor market in March seems to have remained strong despite economic uncertainty, government layoffs, market turbulence. How? How has it stayed this strong?

Yeah, it was a big surprise. Largely what happened was that we saw more jobs being created in sectors like healthcare, transportation, leisure and hospitality. So those really bounced back. The government layoffs, of course, were an issue for this month. But what we saw was that the layoffs were actually pretty modest. It was just 4,000 jobs. But one thing that is worth bearing in mind is that people who were receiving severance weren't necessarily counted as laid off. So there could perhaps be more people who are not working than expected. Of course, the mood about the economy is in a little bit of a different place now because of tariffs. Is the strength that we see in the labor market expected to continue?

The economists who I've spoken to today have largely said that they see this as backward looking data, which it is. This is the month of March. A lot has changed since then. And there is an expectation that this is maybe the last hurrah and that we will see weakness starting to show through in the months ahead for a number of reasons. We have less immigration, so that's potentially a smaller labor force. There's federal layoffs and businesses. They're dealing with a lot of uncertainty and a lot of economists expect that they will be certainly more cautious about hiring in the months ahead.

That was WSJ Economics correspondent Harriet Torry. Thank you Harriet. Thanks. Coming up, a majority of US voters oppose Trump's levies, but the people who voted for him still support him. More after the break. McDonald's new cheesy jalapeno and bacon quarter pounder with 100% Canadian beef is here.

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Only at McDonald's for a limited time. Americans elected Donald Trump with a favorable opinion of his economic plans. Now though, his expansive push for tariffs is making voters skeptical. A new Wall Street Journal poll found that 54% of voters oppose Trump's levies on imported goods, while 42% support his plans. 75% of voters said that tariffs will raise prices on the things they buy, up from 68%

who said so in January. The Journal survey was conducted from March 27 through April 1, a time when Trump had imposed new tariffs on China and certain goods from Canada, Mexico, and elsewhere, but before his Wednesday announcement of sweeping levies on nearly all U.S. trading partners and the subsequent market sell-off. Here to tell us more about what these results mean is WSJ reporter and editor Aaron Zittner. Aaron, this is a shift from the past. Past journal polls before Trump took office found voters mildly supportive of tariffs in general.

What's changed since then? We found that kind of an open mind that people were holding on tariffs while they were just an idea, a campaign proposal from a candidate, had become a more hardened skepticism or opposition once the tariffs were upon us. And remember, economic savvy is Donald Trump's calling card. And yet we find that by eight points, people hold a more negative than positive view of his handling of the economy right now. And by 15 points, people have a more negative than positive view of his handling of inflation. And that kind of plays against his brand.

What does more voter skepticism mean for Trump? Well voters are in a wait and see attitude. We find that 46% of people overall have a positive view of how the president is handling his job and 51% have a negative view. And that's a bit of a change from January when we talked to people right before he was inaugurated. We also find that people really aren't revisiting their votes from 2024. 93% of the people who voted for Donald Trump and who participated in our poll say he's

doing a good job. Only 6% of people who voted for him say they disapprove of how he's handling the job. So there's a lot of stability there, but underneath it we're finding vulnerability. People are anxious, it's a worrisome moment, they don't know what the effect of tariffs are gonna be, and to some degree it's a wait and see posture. That was WSJ Reporter and Editor, Erin Zittner. Thank you, Erin.

Good to be with you. To see more about this poll, check out our story on wsj.com. We'll leave a link in the show notes. To see more about this poll, check out our story on wsj.com. We'll leave a link in the show notes. In other news, President Trump signed an executive order today that grants a 75-day extension to reach a deal to operate TikTok in the U.S. He had faced a Saturday deadline to act, having previously suspended enforcement of a 2024

law calling for TikTok to be sold or shut down in the U.S. On Wednesday, Trump reviewed a proposal in which roughly a dozen potential investors, including cloud computing company Oracle, private equity firms Blackstone and Silver Lake, and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, could take an ownership stake in an American-operated TikTok. It wasn't immediately clear which investors had emerged as part of the deal.

Amazon also made an 11th hour bid, as did mobile technology company AppLovin. And finally, if you want to get an indication about how the economy is doing, just look around your office. Is the fridge a little more crowded than usual? Does a line form in front of the microwave at lunchtime? That may be because more employees

are eating lunches brought from home than they have in years. According to consumer analytics firm, Serkana, the number of lunches bought from restaurants and other establishments nationwide fell 3% in 2024 from the year before. That's fewer than were purchased even in the height of the pandemic work from home era

in 2020. That's bad news for the delis and cafes catering to office workers that had barely survived the pandemic lockdowns. But it's also a bad sign for the economy that many workers are finding the prospect of picking up lunch too rich for their wallet. Interested in seeing what our lunch boxes say

about the economy? We'll leave a link to our story on wsj.com in the show notes. And that's What's News for this week. Tomorrow you can look out for our weekly markets wrap up, What's News in Markets. Then on Sunday we're bringing you an episode of our sister podcast, WSJ's Take on the Week, looking at how the new tariffs may impact corporate earnings and what companies are doing to plan around them. That's in What's New Sunday. And we'll be back with our regular show on Monday morning. Today's show was produced by Anthony Bansi and Pierre Bianame, with supervising producer

Michael Cosmitis. Michael Avall wrote our theme music. Aisha El-Moussoulym is our development producer, Scott Salloway and Chris Zinsley are our deputy editors, and Philana Patterson is the Wall Street Journal's head of news audio. I'm Alex Osela. Thanks for listening.