Trump approval holds at 40%, lowest level of his term: Reuters/Ipsos poll

WASHINGTON - US President Donald Trump’s approval rating held at 40 per cent in recent weeks, matching the lowest level of his current term, amid weak ratings from Hispanic voters, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed on Aug 18.

The six-day poll was conducted as economic data showed signs that the US labour market is weakening and as Mr Trump oversees a sweeping immigration crackdown, while at the same time, the Republican has been

engaged in intense diplomacy to end a war

between Russia and Ukraine.

Mr Trump’s approval rating was unchanged from a late July Reuters/Ipsos poll, but has dropped 7 percentage points since his first days back in the White House in January, when 47 per cent of Americans gave him a thumbs up.

The latest poll showed Hispanics, a group that swung towards Mr Trump in the 2024 election, have also soured on the President.

Some 32 per cent approved of his performance in the White House, matching their lowest level of approval for Mr Trump in 2025.

More than half of respondents – 54 per cent, including one in five Republicans – said they thought Mr Trump was too closely aligned with Russia, even as he ramped up a push to broker peace between Moscow and Kyiv.

Mr Trump has appeared to embrace Russia’s claim that Ukraine must cede territory to Russia in order for the war to stop.

Mr Trump met Russian President Vladimir Putin

in Alaska on Aug 15, and the poll closed just ahead of the President’s meeting on Aug 18 with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Just 42 per cent of respondents approved of Mr Trump’s performance on crime, and 43 per cent thought he was doing a good job on immigration policy. On all policies, his support came overwhelmingly from Republicans.

After returning to the White House in January, Mr Trump ordered a sweeping crackdown on people living in the country illegally, deploying masked agents to arrest and deport migrants across the country.

The policy has triggered

mass protests in cities including Los Angeles

, where about half the population identifies as Latino and many people have family members who are recent immigrants.

More recently, Mr Trump ordered federal agents and National Guard troops to aid in law enforcement in the capital Washington, arguing that crime was rampant there.

Statistics show that violent crime shot up in 2023 but has been rapidly declining since. 

The Reuters/Ipsos poll surveyed 4,446 US adults nationwide and online, and had a margin of error of about 2 percentage points. REUTERS