A new poll shows that Americans overwhelmingly support President Donald Trump’s “Buy American, Hire American” policy, echoing similar surveys conducted in 2014 by campaign pollster Kellyanne Conway.
Seventy-two percent of likely voters approve of Trump’s Executive Order “to the federal government to buy American and hire American,” said a Rasmussen Reports poll taken April 19 to April 20. Only 15 percent of respondents opposed the order, and 13 percent said they are “not sure.”
That lopsided result means that 59 percent of Democrats in the poll favor his basic policy, which Trump made clear in his inauguration speech:
I will fight for you with every breath in my body — and I will never, ever let you down.America will start winning again, winning like never before.We will bring back our jobs. We will bring back our borders. We will bring back our wealth. And we will bring back our dreams.We will build new roads, and highways, and bridges, and airports, and tunnels, and railways all across our wonderful nation.We will get our people off of welfare and back to work — rebuilding our country with American hands and American labor.We will follow two simple rules: Buy American and hire American.
The Rasmussen poll showed that public support for the policy was accompanied by a recognition that cost may rise for Americans.
The poll asked the 1,000 likely voters whether “in the long run, will it cost taxpayers more or less for the federal government to buy American and hire American? Or will the cost be about the same?” Forty-two percent said the policy will cost more, 39 percent said the cost would be stable, and only 15 percent said costs would drop.
The poll showed Trump’s policy got the weakest support from wealthy people and professionals. Only 66 percent of people who earn more than $200,000, and only 60 percent of people with professional degrees support the Buy American, Hire American policy.
In 2014, polls taken by Conway showed that Americans very strongly supported government policies requiring companies to hire Americans before importing more workers.
The overwhelming support for the Buy American, Hire American policy will allow Trump to zig-zag his way past elite and media opposition to gradually implement the policy. If implemented, his policy could mean more curbs on trade, government support of American producers and step-by-step reductions on the inflow of foreign workers into the United States, via legal immigration and the contract-worker programs such as the white-collar H-1B outsourcing program.
Each year, four million Americans turn 18 and begin looking for good jobs in an increasingly automated economy. However, the federal government slashes Americans’ income by annually imports one million new legal immigrants and one million new contract workers, who are used by companies as cheap workers, as welfare-aided customers, and as urban and suburban renters.