Neither a majority of Americans nor a majority of Canadians are at present happy with U.S. President Donald Trump. He has spent a considerable amount of energy in recent days on going after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over trade policy. Now, a new Ipsos poll has found that more Americans side with Trudeau than side with Trump in the debate.
The issue was pushed along recently by the Trump administration’s decision to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imported from an array of countries allied with the U.S. around the world, including Canada. It wasn’t long after those tariffs were unveiled that Trump went to Canada last week for the annual G7 summit. His tariffs hung heavy over the whole meeting.
After Trudeau responded to the tariffs with public words of rebuke, asserting that his country wouldn’t be “pushed around” — having himself pledged retaliatory tariffs to back up those remarks at this point — Trump took to social media to attack Trudeau in particular and the summit he had just left as a whole. He withdrew the United States’ agreement to the traditionally issued joint communique that was a product of the G7 summit and called Trudeau “weak & dishonest.”
In his efforts to go after Canada, Trump does not even have a majority of his own country on his side. That fact of course isn’t entirely surprising, because how far off do you have to be as a United States president to mess up your nation’s relationship with Canada?
According to the newly released Ipsos poll reported upon this week by Global News, 57 percent of Americans approve of the way that Trudeau is handling the situation of the U.S./Canada trade spats — and only 37 percent of Americans approve of the way Trump is handling the issue.
That number isn’t too far off from the bottom of the range of his approval rating. He’s just got the same people behind him after all this time — it’s not like he’s attracting any apparent large groups of new supporters.
Unsurprisingly, fewer Canadians side with Trump than Americans. Only 14 percent of Canadians approve of the way Trump is handling the trade spat situation, according to the new poll, while 72 percent of Canadians side with their own prime minister.
Other issues covered by the new Ipsos poll include American and Canadian views of exactly what Trudeau should do next in the situation of the burgeoning tariff wars. 52 percent of Americans said that Canada shouldn’t “overreact” to Trump’s recent behavior, while 57 percent of Canadians say the same.
The rapidly sparked tariff wars have emerged against the backdrop of ongoing efforts to renegotiate the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement, which the new Ipsos poll also covered. 83 percent of Canadian respondents said they think Canada should remain in the deal, while 73 percent say they think it has benefited Canada. That latter number has jumped significantly; last year, only 56 percent of respondents said they thought the agreement had benefited Canada.
Trump, of course, has cast the agreement as some sort of dastardly monster to be stopped at all costs — but that’s just another instance of him injecting his own virulent personal volatility into global politics.
Featured Image via Kevin Dietsch-Pool/Getty Images
