Americans don’t think import tariffs are a good idea if they lead to higher prices and are skeptical they would help US workers, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found, underscoring the political risks to President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to impose heavy fees on goods from China, Mexico, and other nations.

Only 29% of respondents in the six-day poll, which closed on Tuesday, agreed with a statement that “it’s a good idea for the U.S. to charge higher tariffs on imported goods even if prices increase,” while 42% disagreed. Another 26% said they didn’t know and the rest didn’t answer the question.

Just 17% of respondents agreed with a statement that “when the U.S. charges tariffs on imported goods, it is good for me personally.”

Americans’ views on tariffs pose a potential problem for Trump when the Republican returns to the White House on Jan 20. Economists say his tariff plan, which is more aggressive than the one he employed during his 2017-21 presidency, would spark higher inflation of the sort that weakened Democratic President Joe Biden and helped pave Trump’s path back to the White House.

“I think that some of the public opinion might act as a bit of a brake on Trump’s more extreme tariff plans because clearly, they will show up in prices,” said Mary Lovely, a trade economist and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a pro-trade think tank.

Trump has pledged to boost American industry by imposing a 10% universal import tariff and a 60% tariff on Chinese imports. He has also threatened 25% duties on goods from Mexico and Canada as well as an additional 10% tariff on Chinese goods, as a way to push them to clamp down on the flow of the deadly opioid fentanyl, and illegal immigration to the U.S. The three countries are America’s top trading partners.

In terms of an American citizen who was found just today. I can’t give you any details on exactly what’s going to happen except to say that we’re to bring him home, to bring him out of Syria and to bring him home.

About 10% of U.S. consumer spending goes toward imports, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco has estimated, so major tariffs could significantly impact household finances.

In an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press that aired on Sunday, Trump said he did not believe that consumers ultimately pay the price of tariffs, adding “I think they’re beautiful.”

“Tariffs are going to make our country rich,” he said.

The poll, which was conducted online, surveyed 4,183 U.S. adults nationwide and had a margin of error of about two percentage points in either direction.

‘TARIFF MAN’

Trump’s talk of tariffs has raised the prospect of trade wars – that is, tit-for-tat measures between nations aimed at undermining one another’s economies.

The president-elect called himself a “tariff man” during his first term when he levied tariffs between 7.5% and 25% on some $370 billion worth of Chinese goods. But those policies exempted many top categories of Chinese imports – including smartphones, laptops and video game consoles – and overall U.S. inflation remained low.

Facing much higher levies on potentially every U.S.-bound export, China’s top leaders and policymakers are considering allowing the yuan currency to weaken in 2025, a move that would counter the effect of tariffs by making Chinese goods cheaper in dollar terms, Reuters reported this week.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has hinted at possible retaliation to Trump’s tariffs, saying in a letter to him that “one tariff will follow another in response.” Some Canadian regional leaders have urged a strong response to Trump’s tariffs, including potentially halting Canadian energy exports, while others have highlighted U.S. reliance on critical minerals mined in Canada.

The long-term decline in U.S. factory employment was seen as a factor in Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential election when he carried Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. He won those Rust Belt states again in November.

But Americans currently appear less hostile to international trade than they had during the first Trump administration. Some 48% of respondents in the new poll agreed with a statement that “international trade hurts average Americans because it causes us to lose jobs here in America,” down from 64% in Reuters/Ipsos polling conducted in 2018.

he price of 24 karat per tola gold decreased by Rs5,000 and was sold at Rs277,800 on Friday against its sale at Rs282,800 on previous trading day, All Sindh Sarafa Jewellers Association reported.

The price of 10 grams of 24 karat gold also decreased by Rs4,286 to Rs238,169 from Rs242,455 whereas that of 10 gram 22 karat also went down to Rs218,321from Rs222,250.

The prices of Per tola silver decreased by Rs50 to Rs3,400 whereas that of ten ten gram silver went down by Rs42.86 to Rs Rs.2,914.86 respectively.

The price of gold in the international market decreased by $50 to $2,666 from $2,716, the Association reported.

Meanwhile, Pakistani rupee appreciated by 12 paisa against the US dollar in the interbank trading and closed at Rs278.11 against the previous day’s closing of Rs278.23.

However, according to the Forex Association of Pakistan (FAP), the buying and selling rates of the dollar in the open market stood at Rs277.60 and Rs279.15 respectively.

The price of Euro decreased by Rs 1.54 to close at Rs 291.06 against the last day’s closing of Rs 292.60, according to the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).

The Japanese yen remained came down by one paisa and closed at Rs1.81, whereas a decrease of Rs3.87 was witnessed in the exchange rate of the British Pound, which traded at Rs351.24 as compared to the last day’s closing of Rs355.11.

The exchange rates of the Emirates Dirham and the Saudi Riyal decreased by four and three paisa to close at Rs75.71 and Rs74.01, respectively.

Sweeping deportations pledged by President-elect Donald Trump could pose an economic shock for the restaurant industry in ways that echo the pandemic: pricier menus, rising wages, and shuttered storefronts, economists and some restaurateurs worry.

But Wall Street is wagering that Trump’s tough talk is a bluff ahead of a more limited crackdown that won’t uproot the restaurant industry’s immigrant-heavy workforce.

The industry is one of the most reliant on workers in the country illegally, making it a test case for whether Trump will fulfill completely his campaign promises.

“I see little risk of them deporting people that are working at jobs in restaurants or anywhere else in the food industry,” says Dan Ahrens, chief operating officer and portfolio manager of AdvisorShares. Ahrens said he believes Trump’s administration will focus on immigrant criminals, with talk of broader deportations amounting to political rhetoric.

Thomson Reuters’ index of restaurant and bar stocks has steadily risen more than 5% since the election, outpacing the S&P 500. In the last year, while lagging the S&P, restaurant stocks have risen nearly 10%, buoyed by rising prices sector-wide even as consumers are eating out less.

Gary Bradshaw, portfolio manager at Hodges Capital Management, said he remains bullish on restaurants with growing sales revenue and store numbers, like Chipotle, McDonald’s and Texas Roadhouse. On the prospect of deportations, he said, “My guess is the bark is a lot louder than the bite, but hey, nobody knows. So I don’t spend a whole lot of time thinking about it.”

Jake Dollarhide, chief executive of Longbow Asset Management, said he doesn’t make investment decisions on hypothetical policy. “We didn’t sell our energy stocks the day Joe Biden took office,” he said. He said he believed stock market highs and the “propensity of Americans to spend” would continue to drive restaurant stocks up. “The perception of grocery inflation — whether real or not real — benefits restaurants,” he added.

Trump has said that the initial focus of deportations will be on criminals in the U.S. illegally, but that the net will eventually widen to all immigrants in the country illegally.

“I think you have to do it,” he told NBC last weekend. Around 1-in-12 of the country’s 10 million restaurant workers were living in the United States illegally in 2022, according to Pew Research Center estimates from this summer which have not previously been published.

“Restaurants will be a hard-hit sector,” if Trump lives up to his promises on deportations, said Marcus Noland, an economist with the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Not only will they have to contend with their own higher labor costs, Noland said, but they’ll also have to pay more for food because of disruptions upstream in agriculture.

“You saw this during the pandemic when many restaurants had restricted hours, smaller menus and worse service,” he said.

PIIE estimated prices in the service sector would rise by 1.7% if the Trump administration deported 1.3 million workers, or rise by 11% if the administration fulfilled its commitment to deporting all working immigrants in the country illegally, which the Pew Center estimates at 8.3 million.

“We’re already dealing with a huge labor shortage of food workers,” said Jacob Monty, an immigration and employment lawyer who advises chain restaurants. “If you add more enforcement, it’s going to only get harder to find workers to staff restaurants.”

Diners are already reeling from sticker shock, and Kelsey Erickson Streufert, the Texas Restaurant Association’s chief policy liaison, said restaurateurs in the state are concerned that a “tipping point” has been reached for raising prices. “Customers are only going to pay so much for a hamburger,” she said.