Trump approval rating sinks to yet another low in new poll

Gas Prices Spike and War Fatigue Push Trump Approval to Historic Trough

Cybersecarmor.com – Americans filling up at the pump this summer are paying nearly a dollar more per gallon than they did a year ago, and that sticker shock is landing squarely on the White House. A fresh Reuters/Ipsos survey released on August 17 shows President Donald Trump’s job-approval figure collapsing to 33 percent — the weakest mark he has posted in that tracker since taking office again in January 2025. The drop of two points from the prior month’s reading places him at the very bottom of his second-term polling trajectory, a level that echoes his darkest moment from the first administration back in December 2017.

What the Numbers Say

The survey fielded between August 14 and 17 captured the views of 1,166 U.S. adults, carrying a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points. Within that band, only one in three respondents gave the president a favorable performance rating. The figure is not merely a soft dip; it represents the nadir of every Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted during Trump’s current term, underscoring a sustained downward drift rather than a single anomalous data point.

The parallel to his first term is striking. In December 2017, amid mounting pressure over trade disputes and domestic governance questions, Trump’s approval in the same polling series bottomed out at the same 33 percent level. That the two troughs align so precisely suggests a recurring pattern: initial post-election optimism eroding under the weight of economic friction and foreign-policy turbulence.

The Iran War and the Gas Pump

The dominant driver behind the latest slide appears to be the ongoing military confrontation with Iran. The conflict has effectively frozen roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil trade, a disruption that ripples directly into American fuel costs. The American Automobile Association recorded the national average price of a gallon of regular gasoline at $4.06 on August 17 — up nearly a full dollar from the $3.13 posted on the same calendar date in 2025. For a household driving 1,500 miles a month, that translates into an extra $150 or more in monthly fuel expenditure, a figure that lands with particular force in swing-state suburbs and rural communities where commuting distances are long and alternative transit options are scarce.

Energy analysts note that when a fifth of global oil flows are interrupted, the effect is not confined to the immediate theater. Shipping insurance premiums climb, refinery input costs rise, and downstream consumer goods — from plastics to agricultural chemicals — follow the price curve upward. The cumulative inflationary pressure feeds directly into voter sentiment about household finances, which in turn feeds into approval ratings.

A Nation Braced for a Long Conflict

Public expectations about the war’s duration are overwhelmingly pessimistic. In the August 17 survey, 80 percent of Americans said they believed U.S. involvement with Iran would persist for an “extended period of time.” The sentiment cuts across the partisan divide: 87 percent of Democrats and 71 percent of Republicans shared that expectation. Even among the president’s own base, a substantial minority anticipates a protracted engagement rather than a swift resolution.

“Extended period of time” — the phrase Americans used to describe how long they expect the U.S. role in the Iran conflict to last.

That collective wariness stands in sharp contrast to the administration’s public posture, which has oscillated between promises of decisive action and back-channel diplomacy. The gap between what voters expect and what they perceive the White House delivering is where approval ratings typically erode fastest.

The Oman Ultimatum

Complicating the diplomatic picture, Trump publicly threatened to bomb Oman — a long-standing U.S. ally and host of major American military logistics operations — should its separate negotiations with Iran over passage through the Strait of Hormuz interfere with Washington’s own peace-track efforts toward Tehran. The remark, unusual in its directness toward a partner nation, deepened the sense among voters that the administration’s foreign-policy sequencing is improvised rather than strategic. For readers unfamiliar with the geography, the Strait of Hormuz funnels roughly one-fifth of all seaborne oil shipments; any disruption there immediately tightens global supply and pushes prices higher, which is precisely the mechanism already inflating American gas costs.

The Broader Polling Landscape

While individual surveys fluctuate by a point or two from week to week, the composite averages maintained by major polling aggregators continue to place Trump in negative territory on overall job performance. The August 17 result does not represent an outlier spike; it extends a multi-month pattern of gradual decline that has outpaced the typical post-election honeymoon fade seen in prior presidencies.

For a president whose second term is already more than a year old, the combination of a stalled foreign war, record-high fuel prices, and a public that expects the conflict to drag on for months creates a compounding political headwind. Each additional week of elevated gas prices and each new diplomatic misstep — such as the Oman threat — adds another data point to the downward trend, making the next polling cycle’s numbers a close watch item for both the White House and its opponents.

Kinsey Crowley of USA TODAY contributed reporting to this story. Fernando Cervantes Jr., a trending-news reporter for USA TODAY, can be reached at fernando.cervantes@usatodayco.com and followed on X at @fern_cerv_.