'New and very uncertain territory' as billionaires pay their way into Trump presidency
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USA Today
4 minutes ago
- USA Today
Men don't like how Trump treats the economy. Democrats must cash in on that.
Democrats are being given an opportunity to fix their messaging with Americans who are quickly turning on President Donald Trump. According to new polling, American men are beginning to lose faith in President Donald Trump. It took them long enough, but I'm glad they're here with the rest of us. A CBS News/YouGov poll showed that the president's approval rating among men had dropped to 47%, while 53% disapproved of the job he was doing. It's a stark contrast from the November election, when Trump won male voters by 55%. It's a troubling sign for Republicans, but an opportunity for Democrats to gain ground with male voters before 2026. While men tend to go for the GOP, there is a possibility that Trump continues to alienate them by continuing to torpedo the economy and making irrational decisions when it comes to foreign policy and immigration. Can Democrats fix their messaging? The big issue for men? How Trump handles the economy. Men are particularly upset by Trump's handling of the economy. According to the CBS News/YouGov poll, 49% of men say the economy is getting worse, and 59% disapprove of how he's handling inflation. Sixty percent of men think he's focusing too much on tariffs, while 65% say he isn't doing enough to lower the cost of goods and services. Opinion: MAGA, I feel bad Trump lied to you about the Epstein list. Who saw this coming? Democrats, who tend to have weaker messaging on the economy, should take these criticisms and run with them. The cost of tariffs is likely to be passed on to the consumer. The nation's gross domestic product just declined for the first time in three years. Inflation may be cooling, but prices aren't falling. By putting the blame on Trump for the economic strife Americans are feeling, the Democratic Party could potentially show men that Republican lawmakers may not be the ones to rely on when it comes to their finances. When the rest of us know that was always the case. Men are also dissatisfied with the conflict in Gaza, and immigration While 55% of men say the economy and inflation are critical in how they view the president, there are some issues where Trump is also beginning to lose favor. For example, 53% of men say they are dissatisfied with the Trump administration's handling of the Israel-Hamas war, which the president said he'd end on the campaign trail. Fifty-one percent disapprove of his interactions with Iran. Fifty percent of men disapprove of how Trump is handling immigration, with 47% saying the administration is deporting more immigrants than they believed it would, according to that same poll. All of these concerns are corroborated by other polls that show Trump is widely disliked. This should be a wake-up call that Democrats need to strengthen their message on the Israel-Hamas war, at least advocating for peace talks. They could also combine immigration with economic issues, and stress how Trump's deportation agenda could negatively affect the GDP and increase the cost of food. Opinion: Trump keeps brutalizing immigrants because he's failing at everything else Gen Z is particularly unhappy Generation Z, born between 1997 to 2012, also seems to have woken up to Trump's failures. The CBS News/YouGov poll found that his approval rating among 18- to 29-year-olds plummeted to 28% in July. Seventy-one percent of those under 30 disapprove of Trump's handling of the economy, and 73% disapprove of how he's handling inflation. As with men, it's a far cry from how Gen Z felt about Trump in the 2024 election, when voters ages 18-29 supported Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris by a much smaller margin than they supported former President Joe Biden in 2020. Among this age group, 56% of males voted for Trump, 1 percentage point more than among all male voters. Opinion: Trump is unpopular, polls show, and he's building an America most Americans hate It's telling that the generation whose perception of the Republican Party is entirely shaped by the rise of Trump is suddenly souring on him. Perhaps people around my age are finally realizing that targeting marginalized communities won't actually improve their quality of life, or that Trump made promises he couldn't keep. They might also be realizing that the positive emotions they felt during the first Trump administration can be chalked up to childhood nostalgia. For those of us in the generation who were old enough to vote in 2016, the negatives of Trump's first presidency were unavoidable. Opinion alerts: Get columns from your favorite columnists + expert analysis on top issues, delivered straight to your device through the USA TODAY app. Don't have the app? Download it for free from your app store. If the Democrats are clever, they'll consider this polling and begin brainstorming ways to further drive a wedge between Trump and male voters, particularly those in Gen Z. Yet I'm not sure Democrats are prepared to pick up the young voters Republicans are siphoning off. Their solution now seems to be doing nothing – Democratic leadership essentially disappeared after the 2024 election, and no one seems to know how to get the party back on track. Ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, they need to focus on more than podcasts and memes. They need to be working on crafting a populist message and focusing on economic issues, because that seems to be the deciding factor in whether or not a president is doing well. Follow USA TODAY columnist Sara Pequeño on X, formerly Twitter: @sara__pequeno You can read diverse opinions from our USA TODAY columnists and other writers on the Opinion front page, on X, formerly Twitter, @usatodayopinion and in our Opinion newsletter.
Politico
5 minutes ago
- Politico
The reverse migration: African Americans relocating to Kenya cite heritage and restoration
'I can't say the administration is the reason why the people I know want to part ways from America. Some are planning to move for a better quality of living life,' Harris said. Auston Holleman, an American YouTuber who has lived in various countries for almost a decade, said he settled on Kenya nine months ago because people 'look like me.' 'It is not like going to Europe or going to some Latin American countries where there are not many Black people,' he said. Holleman, who often films his daily life, said he felt that the social fabric in the U.S. was 'broken.' In contrast, he said he felt socially accepted in Kenya. He cited an experience when his taxi driver's car stopped, and in five minutes they got help from a random stranger. 'That made me realize I was in the right place,' he said. Other African countries have attracted even larger numbers of African Americans. Ghana, which launched a 'Year of the Return' program to attract the Black diaspora in 2019, said last year it held a ceremony that granted citizenship to 524 people, mostly Black Americans. African American businesses such as Adilah Relocation Services have seen a notable rise in the number of African Americans seeking to move to Kenya. The company's founder, Adilah Mohammad, moved to Kenya four days after her mother's funeral in search of healing. She says the peace and restoration she experienced in Kenya made her stay — and advocate for those searching for the same. Her company helps clients relocate by house hunting, shopping for furniture and ensuring banking and medical services are seamless. 'There are 15 families that have come so far, and we have five more on the calendar that are coming in the next 90 days. We have people that have booked for 2026 with no date, they just know that they are leaving,' she says. Mohammad said many African Americans have been planning their move for decades. 'For me it is a movement. It is people deciding to make a choice for themselves, they are not being forced, shackles are being broken. When they say they are coming home, they are choosing to be free and it is mental freedom and so I am ecstatic,' she says. Experts say African economies are likely to benefit from these moves, especially from those willing to tackle corruption and create a healthy environment for investors. Raphael Obonyo, a public policy expert at U.N-Habitat, says the U.S is losing resources — as well as the popular narrative that America is the land of opportunities and dreams. 'This reverse migration is denting that narrative, so America is most likely to lose including things like brain drain,' he explained. For Mohammad, the sense of belonging has given her peace within. 'I love being here. Returning to Africa is one thing, but finding the place that you feel like you belong is another,' she said.
an hour ago
US-China trade talks: Can China reduce its export dependence?
BEIJING -- China's high dependence on exports will likely be a key focus of a new round of U.S.-China trade talks this coming week in Stockholm, but a trade deal would not necessarily help Beijing to rebalance its economy. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said he hopes the negotiations can take up this issue, along with China's purchases of oil from Russia and Iran, which undercut American sanctions on those two countries. Hopes rose for a breakthrough in talks after U.S. President Donald Trump announced deals with Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines this week. The U.S. wants China to do two things: Reduce what both the U.S. and the European Union see as excess production capacity in many industries, including steel and electric vehicles. And secondly, to take steps to increase spending by Chinese consumers so the economy relies more on domestic demand and less on exports. 'We could also discuss the elephant in the room, which is this great rebalancing that the Chinese need to do,' Bessent told financial news network CNBC. He said China's share of global manufacturing exports at nearly 30%, 'can't get any bigger, and it should probably shrink.' The issues are not new, and China has been working to address them for years, more for domestic reasons than to reduce its trade surpluses with the U.S. and other countries. Bessent's predecessor as treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, made industrial policy a focus of a trip to China last year. She blamed government subsidies for flooding the global market with 'artificially cheap Chinese products.' The European Union, whose top leaders met their Chinese counterparts in Beijing on Thursday, has cited subsidies to justify EU tariffs on electric vehicles made in China. In the 1980s, the U.S. pressured Japan to boost consumer spending when American manufacturing was overwhelmed by exports from the likes of Toyota and Sony. Economists have long argued that China likewise needs to transform into a more consumer-driven economy. Consumer spending accounts for less than 40% of China's economy, versus close to 70% in the United States and about 54% in Japan. Chinese leaders have spoken about both factory overcapacity and weak consumer spending as long-term problems and have sought over the past 20 years to find ways to rebalance the economy away from export manufacturing and massive investments in dams, roads, railways and other infrastructure. Fierce price wars have prompted critical reports in official media saying that companies are 'racing to the bottom,' skimping on quality and even safety to reduce costs. With strong government support, they've also expanded overseas, where they can charge higher prices but still undercut local competitors, creating a political backlash. All that competition and price cutting has left China battling deflation, or falling prices. When companies receive less for their products, they tend to invest less. That can lead to job cuts and lower wages, sapping business activity and spending power — contrary to the long-term goal of increasing the share of consumer spending in driving overall growth. To counter that, the government is spending billions on rebates and subsidies for people who trade in their cars or appliances for new ones. But acknowledging a problem and solving it are two different things. Economists say more fundamental changes are needed to boost consumption and rein in overcapacity. Such changes can only come incrementally over time. Private Chinese companies and foreign-invested companies create the most jobs, but they've suffered from swings in policy and pressures from the trade war, especially since the pandemic. Demographic changes are another challenge as China's population shrinks and ages. Many experts advocate expanding China's social safety net, health insurance, pensions and other support systems, so that people would feel freer to spend rather than save for a medical emergency or retirement. Yan Se, an economist at Peking University's Guanghua School of Management, warned at a recent forum that deflation will become a long-term issue if China doesn't step up its welfare benefits. 'Chinese people deserve a better life," he said. One possibility, put forward at the same forum by Liu Qiao, the dean of the business school, would be to change incentives for local government officials, rewarding them for raising consumption or household incomes instead of meeting an economic growth target. He doesn't see that happening nationwide but said it could be tested in a province. 'That would send out a message that China needs a different approach,' he said. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has made transforming the country into a technology superpower a top priority. It's a goal that has gained urgency as the U.S. has tightened restrictions on China's access to high-end semiconductors and other advanced knowhow. Output in high-tech manufacturing is growing quickly, adding to potential overcapacity, just as what happened with the government's encouragement of 'green' technologies such as solar panels and wind turbines. Various industries, including EV makers, have pledged to address the issue, but some local governments are striving to keep money-losing enterprises afloat, reluctant to lose tax revenues and jobs, or to fail to meet economic growth targets. Going forward, the government is calling for more coordination of economic development polices in fields such as artificial intelligence so that not every province champions the same industry. But government moves to counter the impact of higher tariffs tend to support sectors already in overcapacity, and the share of consumption in the economy has fallen in recent years.
