Copyright Staten Island Advance
CNN data analyst Harry Enten thinks President Donald Trump picked the wrong country to feud with. Enten on Monday broke down two new polls showing that Americans have taken an increasingly negative view of Trump’s heated trade war with Canada, according to the Pew Research Center and CNN aggregate polling numbers. “We’re talking about Canada coming out nearly 60 points ahead on the net popularity rating versus Donald Trump here in the United States,” Enten said. “When you pick on Canada, as the United States president (has done), you are picking on a country that the American people adore. When you’re going after Canada, you are going against someone who is far more popular than you are, Donald Trump.” Enten additionally cited months-long polling trends from CBS News/YouGov and Reuters/Ipsos showing how support for Trump’s tariff policies has decreased in the U.S. Sixty percent of Americans are now opposed to the president’s tariff plan, a rise from 48% in November 2024, according to Enten’s poll analysis. The average effective U.S. tariff rate has risen from around 2.5% at the start of the 2025 to 18%, the highest rate since 1934, according to the October analysis from Budget Lab at Yale University. And Americans have felt the strain of the administration’s trade policy, with Goldman Sachs economists assessing that by the end of this year, U.S. consumers will be absorbing 55% of tariff costs, while 22% will fall on U.S. businesses. “If I was advising Donald John Trump when it comes to his politics, I’d say step off the tariffs at least from a political point of view,” Enten said. “Because the bottom line is it doesn’t sell with the American people. It’s one of the largest shifts that we have seen during Trump’s second term in office.” Trump last week placed an additional 10% tariff on Canadian imports and cancelled trade talks over an anti-tariff ad produced by the Government of Ontario. The commercial, which ran in the U.S., featured excerpts from former President Ronald Reagan’s 1987 presidential address in which he discussed free and fair trade. “Picking a fight with China is one thing. Picking a fight with Canada is something totally different here,” Enten said. “Well, Canada is far more popular than Donald Trump is here in the United States.”
