What They Told Us: Reviewing Last Week’s Key Polls - Week Ending April 7, 2018

President Trump’s policies were making waves beyond our borders this week, and voters like most of what they saw.

Even as the president imposes tariffs on billions of dollars in Chinese goods to balance the trade playing field, voters continue to view China as an economic threat and think the U.S. government has been too easy on it.

Voters are closely divided, however, over whether the United States and China are now in a trade war and whether America will emerge as the victor. Republicans welcome the U.S.-China trade spat; Democrats don’t.

Trump would like to pull U.S. troops out of Syria. Fewer voters see Syria as a vital national security interest for the United States these days. Fifty-eight percent (58%) believe the United States and its allies are winning the war against the radical Islamic State Group (ISIS).

Voters here are strongly critical of Mexico’s efforts to keep illegal drugs and illegal immigrants out of the United States, and just over half agree with Trump that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is a good weapon to use to make our southern neighbor clean up its act.

The president is earning higher marks for his handling of immigration issues these days.

Positive views of the embattled Department of Veterans Affairs are up since Trump’s election, but voters aren’t enthusiastic about his idea to privatize the VA.

The president’s daily job approval rating hit 51% earlier this week, the highest finding in a year. But his overall approval rating for the month of March fell two points to 46%.

Still, Trump’s job approval ratings have generally been running ahead of where Barack Obama’s were at this stage of his presidency.

Following another bumpy month on the stock market and with a potential trade war with China brewing, economic confidence has fallen again this month. But it still remains well above where it was in the Obama years.

Following the latest upbeat jobs report, the unemployment rate remains at a 17-year low. Americans are more confident than ever that the job market will only get better.

Speaking of jobs, most voters remain convinced that they work harder than Congress, but they’re less sure when it comes to the president.

Are Americans workaholics? Maybe, since many can’t seem to step away from the office, even on vacation.

Just over half oppose a law proposed in New York City that would make it illegal for businesses to contact their employees by e-mail or instant message after work hours.

Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens wrote an op-ed in The New York Times recently calling for repeal of the Second Amendment in light of the current gun control debate, but most Americans reject that idea.

In other surveys last week:

-- Thirty-eight percent (38%) of voters say the country is headed in the right direction.

- The latest Rasmussen Minute takes a closer look at the media’s favorite porn star, Stormy Daniels.

-- Educators have worked hard in recent years to correct what they perceive as an educational imbalance that disadvantages girls, but now some complain that boys are suffering. Most Americans with school-age kids, however, think schools today treat students of both sexes about the same.

-- California reports that it has now issued driver’s licenses to over one million illegal immigrants. But 61% of voters nationwide oppose issuing licenses to illegals in their state.

Visit the Rasmussen Reports home page for the latest current polling coverage of events in the news. The page is updated several times each day.

Remember, if it's in the news, it's in our polls.