Global Image of US Plummets as 70% of People Worldwide Have 'No Confidence' in Trump Leadership

A sign at the Women's March in London the day after President Donald Trump was inaugurated in 2017. (Photo: Alisdare Hickson/Flickr/cc)

Global Image of US Plummets as 70% of People Worldwide Have 'No Confidence' in Trump Leadership

Only 50 percent of the world currently has a favorable opinion of the U.S., according to Pew, compared with 64 percent of those surveyed at the end of Obama's presidency

As President Donald Trump maintains low approval ratings in the U.S.--with Gallup never reporting poll numbers above 45 percent for the president since he took office in 2017--the international community is in agreement with the majority of Americans, and the world's strong disapproval of Trump has had a corrosive effect on the country's standing around the globe.

A Pew Research poll of 26,000 people in 25 countries found that 70 percent of respondents lack confidence in the president, and only 50 percent currently have a favorable opinion of the U.S.--compared with 64 percent of those surveyed by Pew at the end of Barack Obama's presidency.

Just twenty-eight percent of those surveyed in the United Kingdom had a favorable view of Trump, along with 10 percent of Germans, nine percent of French respondents, and seven percent of Spanish people.

In some of the countries polled, leaders have butted heads with Trump in the past year. The president's attacks of Canada's trade policies have eroded relations between Washington and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and his aggressive immigration policies and threats to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border may have contributed to the fact that only six percent of Mexicans currently have a favorable view of Trump himself.

Respondents also suggested that the United States' status as a global influencer may be a thing of the past. Seventy percent of those surveyed said China has a more prominent role in the international community than it did a decade ago, while only 31 percent say the U.S. has an increasingly prominent role.

Protests erupted around the world when Trump first announced his intention to ban travelers from several majority-Muslim countries in 2017 and at the height of the family separation crisis this summer. In the United Kingdom in July, at least 250,000 people took to the streets to protest Trump's visit to the country.

Recently, the global community has joined many Americans in expressing disgust over U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's testimony last week, Trump's defense of him amid several allegations of sexual assault against Kavanaugh, and the Republican Party's insistence on pushing his confirmation through.

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