President Donald Trump promised that his tariffs would usher in a "golden age" by prioritizing the interests of American workers.

Those workers, however, are now turning against Trump's tariffs.

Support for the Trump administration's tariff policies has fallen by 25 percentage points among blue-collar workers over the past year, according to new polling data from Echelon Insights and the Economic Innovation Group (EIG).

A poll conducted by the two groups in August 2025 found that blue-collar workers supported the tariffs by a narrow margin. Now, that same segment of the population has turned decisively against Trump's tariffs: 58 percent oppose them, compared to just 36 percent who support them.

Overall, support for the tariffs has declined from about 43 percent last year to only 34 percent. Opposition to the tariffs has grown from 50 percent to 59 percent. Elsewhere in the same survey, 68 percent of respondents said the tariffs have made the cost of living higher.

It's not hard to figure out why people have turned against the tariffs: They have contributed to rising prices across the economy.

The annualized inflation rate ticked upward to 3.7 percent in September, according to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). More BLS data released Thursday morning shows that the producer price index, which often operates as a precursor to inflation, is up 6.3 percent over the past year.

America's war with Iran has been a major factor in rising inflation, but the tariffs have played a significant role as well. In a study released last week, the New York Federal Reserve concluded that consumer prices would have declined slightly over the past year if not for the economic effects of the tariffs.

The tariffs have become so unpopular that not even partisanship can save them. "Among GOP-voting workers, only 3 percent select tariffs as their top priority," note Jordan McGillis and John Lettieri, policy experts from the EIG, in their write-up of the poll.

Other parts of Trump's economic agenda are not faring much better. The Trump administration has bought or seized shares of more than 30 private businesses over the past two years—ranging from major firms such as U.S. Steel to small mining companies with few customers. "The federal government's state corporatism is unprecedented," reports the Cato Institute in a new analysis of those deals.

Large majorities of workers across both major parties and all generations said they opposed the federal government taking equity stakes in American companies in the Echelon/EIG poll.

In short: This economic populism sure isn't very popular.

All of this is likely to be a major factor in next month's midterm elections. Regardless of how that shakes out, however, there are lessons to be drawn from this poll for both sides of the political divide.

For conservatives, these polling data should end the tariff experiment. It has proven economically damaging, and it is no longer a political winner (if it ever was).

Remember, the idea to hike tariffs and start trade wars with all of America's biggest trading partners was not some grand plan backed by careful study and thoughtful analysis. It sprung, half-baked, from the head of one man. Yes, there have been various attempts to support, in a post hoc way, Trump's desire for tariffs. All of that can, and should, be easily discarded. There is no reason to allow a lame duck president to continue to set such a politically and economically destructive path for the country.

Undoing the tariffs might also put a meaningful dent in rising prices. That should be a no-brainer after the midterms, no matter which party controls Congress.

On the left, this poll should be a reminder that Americans do not look favorably on the mixing of government and business. Democrats should promise to unwind the "equity stakes" that the federal government has taken under Trump's watch. Heading toward the 2028 presidential cycle, Democrats might want to borrow some old Republican talking points about how government shouldn't be picking winners and losers—they may find that message is still quite popular.

Yes, it's probably right to be skeptical that those things will happen. Trump's efforts to centralize economic power in the executive branch are likely to outlive his presidency—that's how these things always seem to go.

But there is a glimmer of hope here. Americans are soundly rejecting the Trump administration's big government policies.

The post Even Blue-Collar Workers Have Turned Against Trump's Unpopular Tariffs appeared first on Reason Magazine.

According to The Washington Post, "The chairman of the Republican-led House Oversight Committee is investigating two D.C.-based activist groups over hosting what he called 'jury nullification training sessions,' claiming that their instructions given to potential jurors were an illegal attempt to subvert federal prosecutors."

The committee chair in question, Rep. James Comer (R–Ky.), has set his sights on the groups known as Free DC and Harriet's Wildest Dreams because they, in Comer's words, believe "that potential jurors should not make decisions impartially based on applying the law as instructed to the facts presented before them in the case, but based on their subjective, personal beliefs and activist agendas."

I hate to break it to Comer, but many prominent members of America's Founding generation would have agreed with those D.C. activists.

The debate over jury nullification asks whether there is a proper place in our legal system for a jury to acquit, not because of any lack of evidence of a defendant's guilt, but because the jury believes the underlying law that was supposedly broken, or the prosecutor's particular enforcement of that law, to be unconstitutional.

In 1791, the influential Founding Father James Wilson, who was a signer of both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, delivered a widely discussed lecture on law at the College of Philadelphia. "Whoever would be obliged to obey a constitutional law, is justified in refusing to obey an unconstitutional act of the legislature," Wilson said. "When a question, even of this delicate nature, occurs, every one who is called to act, has a right to judge." Needless to say, jurors are among those "called to act" in this very manner. Jurors therefore have their own "right to judge" the constitutionality of the law (and prosecution) before them.

Thomas Jefferson made a similar point in a 1789 letter to Thomas Paine. "The trial by jury," Jefferson wrote, is "the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution." How else may a jury hold the government accountable to the principles of the Constitution than by judging for itself the constitutionality of the government's actions, including the actions of the police and prosecution?

According to Comer, the job of a juror is mechanically "applying the law as instructed to the facts presented before them in the case."

But that's not what Founding Fathers such as Wilson and Jefferson thought. They argued that the job of the juror was to apply the text of the Constitution to the actions of the government and to acquit the defendant if either the law or its enforcement came up short. As Alexis de Tocqueville put it in his great book, Democracy in America, the jury "places the real direction of society in the hands of the governed, or a portion of the governed, and not in that of the government."

In Other Legal News

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week in two cases that are worth keeping track of.

• On Tuesday, the justices weighed the matter of Beaird v. United States, which asks how much judicial deference is owed to the U.S. Sentencing Commission's commentary on the federal sentencing guidelines when a judge is applying those guidelines during a federal criminal defendant's sentencing. You can read this newsletter's past coverage of that case here.
• On Wednesday, the justices took on the matter of Salazar v. Paramount Global, which asks whether the website 247Sports violated the Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988 when it shared a user's private information, including what videos he watched, with Facebook. Past Injustice System coverage of that case is available here.

The post Jury Nullification Is Not a Crime appeared first on Reason Magazine.

Ukrainian officials contacted the White House, CIA, and Pentagon after the restrictions, which Ukraine says affected both Starlink and Starshield, Axios reported on 14 October. A senior US official told Axios the Trump administration had nothing to do with the restrictions. On the same day, Elon Musk said on X that Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government, and that any speed or usage limits are decided by the US military and ultimately the president.

The restrictions could affect Ukraine’s ability to intercept Russian attack drones and carry out mid-range strikes against Russian forces and military targets in occupied Ukrainian territories. A speed cap of 160 km/h was insufficient to intercept some jet-powered drones, an unnamed Ukrainian official told Axios. Ukrainian officials told Axios they suspect SpaceX imposed the restrictions to pressure Kyiv to accept US President Donald Trump’s demand to stop striking Russian oil refineries, though the motive remains unconfirmed. But Starlink does not work inside Russia, and the drones attacking Russian oil facilities use other communications systems, according to Reuters.

What Musk and the White House said

Musk did not directly address the throttling, Axios noted. Starlink, he wrote, “is a commercial service owned and controlled by SpaceX,” limited to civilian or defensive use.

White House officials told the Ukrainians they don’t have control over SpaceX, two sources told Axios. One said the administration would reach out to SpaceX to figure out what happened. The White House did not immediately respond to Axios’s request for comment.

How the cap disrupted drone missions

Presidential adviser Serhii Beskrestnov said on 14 October that SpaceX had imposed a 160 km/h limit on Starshield’s “military package” overnight without warning. Ukraine’s 7th Rapid Reaction Corps said mid-range strike drones must reach high speed quickly and that an unstable connection “will make it impossible to launch such aircraft or use them as intended.” One unit on the Huliaipole front had to cancel some missions, the corps told Novynarnia.

Explore further

Ukraine is going back to hitting Russian oil after its Trump-pressured pause, during which Kyiv got no US warnings of incoming ballistic missiles

Ukrainian officials told Axios the system turned off when drones exceeded 160 km/h, and sometimes 80 km/h, before service was partially restored on 14 October. The Defense Ministry said SpaceX continues to restrict Starlink to 160 km/h and that it remains in communication “with partners and SpaceX regarding stable service conditions and the prevention of sudden restrictions,” Axios reported.

A diesel deal

The restrictions followed Trump’s 9 October deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin easing sanctions on Russian diesel. A day later, Trump told reporters: “We said you could do whatever you want to Russia, don’t hit the refineries,” the Kyiv Independent reported.

When a president starts with a predetermined policy and then goes looking for a statutory pretext to justify it, he is building on shaky ground. President Donald Trump illustrated that point once again in July, when he announced a third round of broad tariffs after his first two attempts ran into legal trouble.

Shortly after taking office in 2025, Trump claimed to have discovered a previously unnoticed delegation of extensive tariff authority in the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), a 1977 law that does not mention import taxes and had never been used to impose them. That claim was rejected by every court that considered it.

Last February, the Supreme Court ruled that IEEPA does not authorize tariffs at all. But Trump had a backup plan: Hours after that decision, he announced another sweeping set of tariffs, this time relying on Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974.

That provision allows tariffs in response to "fundamental international payments problems" caused by "serious United States balance-of-payments deficits." In May, the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) ruled that the new tariffs were illegal because Trump had failed to "identify balance-of-payments deficits within the meaning of Section 122."

Although that decision was stayed pending appeal, Trump's Section 122 tariffs, which were subject to a 150-day statutory limit, expired on July 24. Trump then switched to Plan C, invoking Section 301 of the Trade Act, which authorizes tariffs in response to a foreign "act, policy, or practice" that is "unreasonable or discriminatory" and "burdens or restricts" U.S. commerce.

Trump's Section 301 tariffs supposedly targeted countries that had failed to "impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor." The alleged offenders included 86 economies that accounted for nearly all U.S. imports.

In separate complaints, the Liberty Justice Center (LJC) and the law firm Akin Gump, which had played leading roles in challenging Trump's prior tariffs, immediately asked the CIT to block the new import taxes. By and large, they noted, the government had failed to explain how the targeted countries had fallen short, how their alleged failures burdened U.S. commerce, or why the new tariffs could be expected to ameliorate the problem they were supposed to address.

The LJC argued that the forced-labor issue was "simply a pretext" for reinstating Trump's "invalidated global tariff regime." It added that Trump's reading of Section 301, like his interpretation of IEEPA, would violate the "major questions" doctrine, which requires clear congressional authorization for policies of "vast economic and political significance."

This was Trump's "third attempt" to "impose essentially the same set of sweeping global tariffs," Akin Gump's lawyers wrote. "The third time's not the charm."

The post Trump Keeps Coming Up With Legally Dubious Tariff Justifications appeared first on Reason Magazine.