One year after the launch of President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, public opinion about the efficacy of the trade strategy has shifted—as have Americans’ attitudes about the country’s relationships with its top trading partners.
More than half (58 percent) of 3,507 American adults surveyed from March 23 to 29 by the Pew Research Center aren’t too confident in the Commander in Chief’s ability to make sound decisions on trade policy, while 63 percent said they have little or no faith in his efforts.
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Predictably, opinions are divided on party lines, with Republicans and Republican-leaning independents about six times more likely (74 percent) than their Democratic and Democratic-leaning counterparts (12 percent) to express confidence in Trump’s decisions. When it comes to tariff policy specifically, 66 percent of Republicans trust the president’s judgment, while 91 percent of Democrats said exactly the opposite.
Notably, though, many Americans—regardless of party—espoused evolving views on the nature of America’s relationships with China, Canada and Mexico, its top three trading partners.
Collectively, the three countries made up 31.5 percent of all U.S. imports and accounted for 28.6 percent of all U.S. exports in 2025, according to Census Bureau data.
All three countries are strong consumers of American goods and producers of products consumed in the U.S., and that, Pew analysts wrote, has muddied the Trump administration’s attempts to lower America’s global trade deficit.
For many years, the biggest bilateral deficit was with China, which exported far more goods to U.S. shores than it imported from American makers and farmers. But for the first time on record this century, the U.S. deficit with Mexico superseded the deficit with China, as imports from America’s neighbor to the South grew 4.4 percent last year. During that time frame, exports to Mexico rose by just 1.5 percent, fueling a U.S.-Mexico trade deficit of $194.6 billion.
While the U.S. was bringing in more from Mexico—which enjoys duty-free benefits on most products through the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA)—trade volume between the U.S. and China plummeted. With China a major target of Trump’s tariffs, imports fell by a whopping 28 percent in 2025, and exports—like American-grown soybeans—took a 17.7 percent dive.
As a result, the U.S.-China trade deficit narrowed from $262.2 billion to $168.1 billion from 2024 to 2025.
Americans’ views of the relationship with Mexico have changed in light of these shifting trade dynamics. Pew data showed that fewer people in the U.S. (28 percent) now believe that the partners benefit equally from their trade relationship, compared to 34 percent last year.
They haven’t, however, adjusted their thinking so much that they believe Mexico benefits more from the relationship, despite its expanding trade with the U.S. Just 22 percent said Mexico benefits more than the U.S., compared to 29 percent last year. In fact, more Americans (22 percent) reported thinking that the U.S. came out on top, up from 16 percent previously.
China, predictably, is a different story when it comes to sentiment, despite the marked shift in trade dynamics. The largest share of Americans (42 percent) continue to believe that China benefits more than the U.S. from the trade relationship, though this has decreased slightly from the 46 percent seen in 2025. Just 11 percent of respondents said they believe the U.S. benefits more from the relationship than China—a number that has held steady since 2025, and nearly one-quarter (24 percent) believe the trade dynamic is balanced in benefits.
Meanwhile, Canada remains the second-largest source of imports to the U.S. as well as the most prominent destination for American exports, though overall trade volume fell 4.4 percent last year amid the escalation in tensions and mutual tariffing, chiefly propelled by Trump. The U.S.-Canada trade deficit also shrank to $24.4 billion from $36 billion.
The largest share of U.S. respondents (37 percent) said that Canada and the U.S. benefit equally from their bilateral trade relationship—far more than those that said the same about America’s relationship with Mexico or China. However, it does represent a decline from last year, when 44 percent said the U.S. and Canada were on equal footing in their relationship.
As of late March, 21 percent said Canada benefits more from the relationship than the U.S., a 5 percent decline from last year. And relatively few Americans (12 percent) believe the U.S. benefits more than Canada, up from 10 percent last year.
Party politics also appeared to inform respondents’ views on these dynamics, with Republicans more likely to say that trade partners like China, Canada and Mexico benefit more from the U.S. than the other way around. Democrats are more likely to believe that the trade partners benefit equally from the relationships.
Since last year, however, there’s been a subtle shift in Republicans’ views on have become less likely to say the other countries benefit more from trade with the U.S.
Regardless of the perception of trade dynamics, the four economies and their relationships with each other represent a tremendous trade value. “All told, about $2.4 trillion in goods and services moved between the U.S. on one hand and China, Canada and Mexico on the other in 2025,” Pew analysts wrote—though that’s down from $2.5 trillion in 2024.
Despite the Trump administration’s efforts to control the inbound flow of goods from foreign producers using punitive and retaliatory duties, the total U.S. trade deficit with the rest of the world grew significantly last year to $911.7 billion, up from $903.5 billion in 2024. All told, Americans imported nearly $912 billion more in goods and services from other nations than they exported to them.
