AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Meanwhile, as President Trump heads to Beijing to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping today, how do Americans feel about the U.S. relationship with China? A new NPR/Chicago Council/Ipsos poll finds that most Americans think that U.S. tariffs have been bad for both economies and have driven up consumer costs. A majority also say that tariffs have not been good for creating U.S. jobs. NPR's Frank Langfitt reports.
FRANK LANGFITT, BYLINE: Damien Mann lives in Wisconsin. He operates pilot cars, which help guide and protect truckers hauling oversized loads. He says U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports hurt people like him.
DAMIEN MANN: You know, as far as auto parts, I do a lot of my own repairs and maintenance, and we definitely see increase in the costs of that.
LANGFITT: And do you know where those parts come from?
MANN: Oh, yeah, yeah. There's a lot of that are produced in China, all or partially.
LANGFITT: Mann is 31 and considers himself politically independent. He believes free trade reduces prices for American consumers and doesn't like the government using tariffs to protect U.S. businesses.
MANN: If domestic manufacturers aren't competitive enough to survive exposure to the international market, I don't see why we, as citizens and taxpayers, should be obligated to take up the burden of that cost.
LANGFITT: David Morgan lives more than 900 miles away in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. He's 84 and knows the impact of foreign competition. Morgan used to be in the furniture business.
DAVID MORGAN: I started in a little garage. It had grown. We were doing about $2 million, $2 1/2 million a year.
LANGFITT: Then came the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, in 1994. Seven years later, China joined the World Trade Organization.
MORGAN: All of a sudden, the same thing we were making was coming from parts of the Far East, and they were making it - selling them at half the price, and we had to close up our business. I'm a big believer in tariffs. The American way of life is more expensive than most other places, and we need to protect it.
LANGFITT: President Trump has pushed to reduce Chinese imports since his first term. Last year, he slapped massive tariffs on China again. But Americans continue to rely heavily on Chinese goods, which still accounted for more than 8% of all U.S. imported goods in 2025. Carl McGuire is a Republican who lives in Colorado. He feels for the many millions of Americans who lost work because of foreign trade. But he says tariffs won't erase the competitive advantage lower-wage countries like China have in manufacturing.
CARL MCGUIRE: They can do it cheaper, so the resources should flow there, and our resources should flow to the highest and best uses. And right now, that just isn't going to be the manufacturing. And the tariffs don't change enough for them to reshore (ph) those jobs.
LANGFITT: The NPR survey found 7 in 10 Americans support a potential solution to the tariff battle - cut tariffs on Chinese goods in exchange for China buying more U.S. agricultural products.
SANDRA BAKER: Those are the sorts of bargains that seem, to me, to make a lot of sense economically.
LANGFITT: Sandra Baker is 81. She's a Democrat and lives in central Arkansas. Baker says if the Chinese return to buying more agricultural products, that would help.
BAKER: They were the largest importer of Arkansas soybeans in the world. We've got a lot of farmers in trouble here in Arkansas.
LANGFITT: China resumed buying U.S. soybeans late last year but at nowhere near the levels that Trump had hoped. The survey also found more than half of those polled consider China a rival or adversary, and most say China's growing economic power is a greater threat than its military. That's Ahsan Choudry's take. He's 50 and works in healthcare in Virginia.
AHSAN CHOUDRY: I do see China as an economic competitor. While China is advancing technologically, I don't think that their military capabilities are quite up to par with the U.S.
LANGFITT: In addition, most poll respondents also thought the war in Iran was worse for the U.S. than for China. Jenni Mecham agrees. She's a Democrat from San Francisco.
JENNI MECHAM: I don't think China is losing anything. I think that this is not harming them in the slightest. China is just sitting back saying, let's watch the U.S. self-destruct.
LANGFITT: When it comes to the war, the survey did find overwhelming consensus on one point - it's bad for the whole world. Frank Langfitt, NPR News, Washington.
(SOUNDBITE OF DAFT PUNK SONG, "INSTANT CRUSH") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
