Trump's 100-day approval rating hits the lowest level of all US presidents in 80 years! Former White House senior officials warned of tariff policies! American economist speaks

Source: National Business Daily

According to CCTV News on the 28th, U.S. President Trump's second term in office is about to reach the 100-day mark. A latest public opinion poll jointly conducted by ABC News, The Washington Post, and Ipsos Group on April 27th local time showed that Trump's approval rating after 100 days in office is 39%, a figure that has dropped by 6 percentage points compared to February this year and has set the lowest approval rating for a U.S. president after 100 days in office in the past 80 years.

According to Xinhua News Agency on April 27th, since the Trump administration took office on January 20th, it has wantonly wielded the "tariff stick," strongly pushed forward the immigration deportation plan, significantly cut federal employees, shut down a large number of government agencies, and a series of actions have aroused public anger. According to statistics from a U.S. legal research institution, the Trump administration is facing more than 200 lawsuits within the United States. Analysts believe that the confrontation between the judiciary and the executive branch is further intensifying the political chaos and social fragmentation in the United States, triggering a constitutional crisis and posing great resistance to the implementation of the Trump administration's policies.

It is worth mentioning that the market's attitude of "voting with its feet" is clear: From the day of his swearing-in on January 20th to April 25th, the three major U.S. stock indexes have all declined significantly, and the U.S. dollar index has dropped by nearly 9%. Looking at the 21st century, this is undoubtedly one of the most dismal starts for a U.S. president.

The chill from Washington is spreading rapidly, which is not only reflected in the cold data of the University of Michigan Consumer Confidence Index - the index has dropped to its lowest level since August 2022 and has fallen by nearly 30% from its peak in December last year, but also manifested in the cautious actions of the "smart money" of large European pension funds, which have pressed the "pause button" on their investments in the United States.

Trump's Latest Approval Rating Announced

According to CCTV News on the 28th, U.S. President Trump's second term in office is about to reach the 100-day mark. A latest public opinion poll jointly conducted by ABC News, The Washington Post, and Ipsos Group on April 27th local time showed that Trump's approval rating after 100 days in office is 39%, a figure that has dropped by 6 percentage points compared to February this year and has set the lowest approval rating for a U.S. president after 100 days in office in the past 80 years.

According to the poll data, 72% of Americans believe that Trump's economic policies are very likely to lead to a U.S. economic recession in the short term, 53% of people think that the U.S. economic situation has become worse since Trump took office, and 41% of people believe that their own financial situation has deteriorated since Trump took office. At the political level, 65% of people said that the Trump administration is trying to avoid complying with the orders of the federal court, 64% of people think that Trump's actions in expanding presidential power are too radical, and 62% of people believe that the Trump administration does not respect the rule of law.

This public opinion poll was conducted by randomly sampling and interviewing 2,464 American adults from April 18th to 22nd, 2025.

U.S. Economist: Tariff Policies Will Leave U.S. Store Shelves Empty

According to a report in The Washington Post on April 27th local time, more and more evidence shows that the Trump administration's tariff policies have already suppressed U.S. economic activities and will soon drive up commodity prices, and the relevant impacts will take some time to be widely felt.

According to the report, Torsten Slok, Chief Economist of Apollo Global Management, said that the tariff policies will leave the shelves of U.S. stores empty in a few weeks. Slok said that the decrease in the goods arriving at the U.S. coast means that the prices of goods in stores will rise, and the jobs of dockworkers and truck drivers will also decrease. There may be large-scale layoffs in trucking, logistics, and the retail industry as early as May.

The report said that the Trump administration's imposition of tariffs on Chinese goods has disrupted the trans-Pacific supply chain. U.S. officials are worried about the reduction in the inventory of key raw material metals for enterprises, and these metals are crucial for a series of economic activities. Ryan Petersen, founder and CEO of Flexport, a U.S. freight forwarding and logistics company, said that within three weeks since the Trump administration's tariff policies came into effect, the order volume of shipping containers from China to the United States has dropped by more than 60%. According to port data, freight companies transporting goods from Asia to the Port of Los Angeles in the United States have cancelled 20 port calls next month, which is more than three times the same figure last month.

On April 27th local time, Gary Cohn, who served as Director of the White House National Economic Council during Trump's first term as president, said that the impact of the current U.S. tariff policies will begin to be felt nationwide by the end of next month, and this prediction is based on the time required for the transportation and distribution of goods.

Gary Cohn said that people with lower income levels and economic strength will spend 100% of their salaries on purchasing goods, while the wealthy will save a higher proportion of their income. This means that tariffs will have a greater impact on low-income Americans. Regarding the issue of interest rates, Gary Cohn said that from the perspective of the Federal Reserve, this institution is fulfilling the duties entrusted to it, so essentially, there is no reason for the Federal Reserve to take action to lower interest rates now.

The Three Major U.S. Stock Indexes Have Declined Significantly

According to a report in the National Business Daily, Trump's 100 days in office are undoubtedly painful for investors. In the 67 trading days from January 20th to April 25th, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has cumulatively dropped by 7.76%, the S&P 500 Index has fallen by 7.86%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index has plummeted by an astonishing 11.45%. This performance not only forms a sharp contrast with the comprehensive rise of the market within 100 days of Biden's taking office but also represents a historically weak start compared with other former presidents in this century.

Even during George W. Bush's first term in office, although the Nasdaq index was severely hit by the bursting of the Internet bubble, dropping by more than 26%, the Dow Jones index rose during the same period. Obama's first 100 days began in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, and at that time, the decline of the Nasdaq index was also less than it is now, and the S&P 500 index even recorded an increase.

In April, affected by Trump's so-called "reciprocal tariffs," the Dow Jones index fell by 9.1% in the first three weeks. Historically, only the performance of the Dow Jones index in April 1931 was worse than that in the first three weeks of this month, when the United States was experiencing the "Great Depression."

In the past 70 trading days, the ICE U.S. Dollar Index, which measures the strength of the U.S. dollar against a basket of major currencies, has cumulatively dropped by nearly 9%. According to data dating back to the Nixon era (when the United States abandoned the gold standard and shifted to a freely floating exchange rate regime), the U.S. dollar index is expected to record the worst performance in the first 100 days of a U.S. president's term in office in more than half a century.

U.S. Treasury bonds, a traditional safe-haven asset, have also been sold off this month, leading to a rare "triple whammy" of stocks, foreign exchange, and bonds in the U.S. market. The depreciation of the U.S. dollar and the loss of the safe-haven property of U.S. Treasury bonds pushed spot gold to briefly rise above $3,500 per ounce this week. On April 24th Beijing time, JPMorgan Chase released a report stating that the U.S. move to impose tariffs has increased the probability of an economic recession, and it is expected that the price of gold will break through $4,000 per ounce in 2026.

Although Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller's statement in support of interest rate cuts on April 24th greatly boosted U.S. stocks, causing the three major stock indexes to rise for four consecutive trading days recently, Goldman Sachs' capital flow team pointed out this week that although the stock market has found some room to breathe, it does not mean that the pressure disrupting the market has disappeared. They gave an analogy: "It's like the weather in New York reaching 26 degrees Celsius in April. We're not going to jump into the pool in a hurry."

The latest "Beige Book" report released by the Federal Reserve on April 23rd shows that the economic conditions in the 12 Federal Reserve districts in the United States are generally full of uncertainties, mainly due to frequent changes in trade policies, weak consumer spending, and the deterioration of the economic outlook. All kinds of signs suggest that the economy may be on the verge of a downturn.

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