Trying to Convince Republicans About Tariffs' Costs Can Backfire

Public psychology around trade and tariffs is complicated. On the one hand, people largely want investment and trade flowing between countries, and favor robust competition that benefits consumers. But they fear possible job losses from unfettered global competition and technological change, and they want to buy products made in their home countries. Many U.S. adults may feel betrayed by past expert narratives promising that free trade was a tide lifting all boats, when they perceive instead the hollowing out of U.S. manufacturing. They also understand that cheap goods come from overseas, and have very little appetite for more inflation. 

In today’s polarized political environment where tariffs — once the esoteric domain of trade wonks — have become a major talking point of president-elect Donald Trump, people’s political views are acting as powerful filters for how Americans process information about their likely effects. 

Consumers believe companies will pass on costs, but support for tariffs remains high nonetheless

Majorities across the political spectrum believe that U.S. companies will pass on increased costs due to tariffs to consumers. This highlights the relative success of existing media narratives in convincing many Americans that tariffs will raise costs.

But persistently high public support for tariffs despite knowing they increase consumers’ household expenses calls into question the efficacy of this narrative as a means to dissuade U.S. adults from supporting the imposition of new tariffs. Despite believing that consumers will be harmed by tariffs via companies passing on costs, pluralities of U.S. adults still support Trump’s publicly announced tariff proposals for 10% and 20% tariffs on all imports to the United States, as well as 60% tariffs on imports from China. 

Ignorance of the tariffs’ actual cost does not fully explain continued support

One possible explanation for consumers’ supporting tariffs despite believing they will pay more for goods if tariffs are enacted is that consumers don’t know how much tariffs could cost them. We showed that support for new tariffs is lowest for products where consumers have been surprised by inflation, and highest for products where consumers have not noticed recent price increases. In other research in this series, we also showed that consumers systematically underestimate how much prices could rise due to the Trump administration’s proposed tariffs, with Republicans especially far off in their estimates of how much 10% and 20% across-the-board tariffs and 60% tariffs on China would impact their wallets.

These research findings support the idea that if only consumers knew the actual cost of tariffs to their households, their support should decline. However, the fact that Republicans’ estimates are consistently wrong by a greater amount hints at another factor that is playing into support for costly tariffs: Political ideology may be filtering how some U.S. consumers are processing information about tariffs. 

An experiment: Does knowing more about the cost change Americans’ minds on tariffs?

In order to test the effect of specific cost-related narratives on Americans’ views of them and assess whether political affiliation mediates those views, we fielded a survey in which we first asked all respondents about their support for tariffs, then randomly split respondents into several assessment groups, and finally gauged their support again. One group (the “control group”) was given no additional information about the tariffs, while the other group (the “treatment group”) was given information on the estimated annual costs to consumers of 10% tariffs on all imports, 20% tariffs on all imports, and 60% tariffs on imports from China. Specifically, we provided the latter group with information from the Tax Foundation, a tax policy non-profit whose research estimated that a 10% tariff on all imports would increase the cost of goods of U.S. households by $1,253 on average the following year, and that a 20% universal tariff would increase the cost of goods on U.S. households by $2,045 on average the following year. Adding in China tariffs of 60% could raise that cost to around $2,600 a year.

Providing information on consumer costs slightly decreases U.S. adults’ support for tariffs

In order to isolate the effect of the cost-related narrative, we compared the change in respondents’ answers across each group, and subsequently repeated the comparison by party affiliation. Among U.S. adults in general, support declined slightly for each of the tariff proposals as a result of providing information on the cost relative to providing no new information. But while the declines for both groups are significant, the difference between them is not. 

If we look by party affiliation, we see that Democrats reduced their support for 10% across-the-board tariffs by a large amount when informed about likely consumer costs, but by much smaller amounts for 20% blanket tariffs or 60% tariffs on China. If we look back to initial support levels prior to conducting the experiment, 42% of Democrats initially said they supported 10% across-the-board tariffs, similar to the share of U.S. adults in general and 12 points higher than their support for 20% across-the-board tariffs. This gave their weaker support a lot of room to fall upon receiving new information about costs. 

Republicans double down on tariff support when provided with cost information

In contrast, Republicans doubled down. Providing Republicans with specific information on the likely consumer cost of Trump’s tariff proposals actually backfired, increasing support for the tariffs relative to the control group. In the 10% blanket tariff category, Republicans actually increased their support in absolute terms from the beginning to the end of the survey. The largest backlash was for tariffs specifically on China. Republicans’ views on this topic in relation to China may additionally be affected by Republicans’ greater animus towards the major U.S. rival. 

What seems apparent in these charts is confirmed by a statistical test: Respondents’ political views strongly moderated the causal effects of providing the information about consumer costs of the tariff proposals. Being Republican decreased the effectiveness of the narrative in changing prior views in the expected direction. 

New tariffs are still hypothetical, but durable Republican support poses risks for corporates

Republicans’ more persistent support for tariffs despite being informed of the costs may also have more complex drivers than political ideology alone. In our prior research, for example, we found that Republicans are more likely than Democrats by a large margin to think all three tariff proposals we examine benefit the U.S. economy, and they are also more likely to say the U.S. government imposes tariffs to protect and grow domestic industries. On both accounts, Republicans may simply infer that the higher the tariffs’ sticker price, the greater the benefits must be for the U.S. economy overall and for U.S. industries (or job creation), even if consumers themselves must bear some momentary pain at the cash register. Price increases are currently hypothetical, and Republicans may react quite differently once tariffs are implemented if they are unpleasantly surprised by price increases. 

Precedent for this type of explanation can be found in a large body of academic work indicating that Americans commonly form preferences on the basis of how trade policy affects the economy as opposed to their own finances. Our survey findings suggest a similar explanation may be at work in the context of voters’ preferences for upcoming tariffs.

On the flip side, Republicans’ relatively persistent enthusiasm for tariffs also suggests they are unlikely to blame the U.S. government — which is ultimately responsible for implementing the tariffs — for any rising costs that do materialize, even as they clearly expect their household expenses to take a hit. This makes corporates a convenient scapegoat for both consumers and the administration. In a bid to deflect blame, we see an easy opening for the government to construct a convincing narrative about unpatriotic companies excessively increasing prices — much as the Biden administration emphasized “greedflation” — exposing corporations to political risk.

An indirect messaging approach could be more effective for Republican consumers 

Interestingly, the control group which was not given any new information beyond taking the regular survey providing their opinions on tariffs saw significant declines in support for tariffs across all proposals from the beginning to the end of the survey. The survey included questions on retaliation by foreign countries, cost estimates, and the potential effects of tariffs on U.S. producers. 

A large body of research looks at how the content of a survey itself can “prime” respondents into thinking more critically about a topic and potentially change their views. This suggests that more effective narratives for conservative consumers surrounding the tariffs’ potential downsides might include more diverse information that encourages them to think about the potential mechanics of how a tariff might affect consumers and the economy as a whole in more nuanced terms, such as information on how much of U.S. manufacturing relies on foreign inputs, or expected costs increases for lists of specific everyday products or groups of products that matter most to consumers. U.S. companies considering how to reallocate costs from impending tariffs and concerned about blowback from consumers should consider these and other messaging strategies carefully as we inch closer to a renewed trade war in 2025.