On world stage Trump loathed as much as Obama was loved
They love him in Israel and India. In the Philippines. And Kenya. Oh, and in Nigeria.
The rest of the world? Not so much.
Confidence in U.S. President Donald Trump to do the right thing when it comes to world affairs remains broadly negative, according to a Pew Research Center survey.
The Washington-based Pew study, released Wednesday, found that among people it polled in 32 countries, just 29 per cent expressed confidence in Trump. Sixty-four per cent said they lacked confidence in the current White House occupant.
The figures stand in marked contrast to the final years of Barack Obama’s presidency, when a median of 64 per cent expressed confidence in Trump’s predecessor to direct America’s role in the world in a positive manner.
Pew last conducted a survey of this kind in 2017.
The survey published Wednesday was conducted in the spring and summer of 2019, well before the Trump administration’s slaying of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, an action that has brought fresh scrutiny to one of Trump’s signature foreign-policy moves: exiting the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers. It has led to increased tensions between Tehran and Washington.
At home, Trump has an approval rating of roughly 45 per cent and a disapproval rating of nearly 53 per cent, with the remaining 2 per cent not sure, according to an average of job approval polls published by RealClearPolitics, a website focused on political analysis.
Distaste for Trump was led by Europe, where approximately three-in-four people in Germany, Sweden, France, Spain and the Netherlands lack confidence in Trump. Mexicans, too, do not like him, where 89 per cent lack confidence.
Trump’s attempt to directly negotiate with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un over that country’s nuclear weapons program garnered the most support of all his various foreign policy actions across the 33 countries surveyed — although only a median of 41 per cent of people approve of this action, compared with 36 per cent who disapprove.
Pew, which describes itself as a non-partisan “fact tank” that does not itself take positions on policy decisions, tested the international popularity of four other world leaders in its survey: Germany’s Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron, Russian President Vladimir Putin and China’s President Xi Jinping. Trump was more negatively viewed than all the leaders asked about in the survey.
Still, overall global attitudes toward the U.S. remain largely favourable, although there are large differences across the 33 nations surveyed for that part of the study. Three Central and Eastern European nations — Poland (79 per cent), Lithuania (70 per cent) and Hungary (66 per cent) — had the most favourable opinion of the U.S.
Outside of the EU, Ukraine (73 per cent) also scored high, although views about Trump were less favourable (46 per cent). And Pew notes the survey in Ukraine was conducted prior to revelations last year about Trump’s July 2019 phone call with the country’s new president.
In Russia, just 29 per cent of those polled viewed America positively.
Israelis give the U.S. its highest rating on the survey (83 per cent favourable). Elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa, attitudes were more negative, especially the case in Turkey, where just one-in-five (20 per cent) have a favourable opinion of the U.S., the lowest percentage registered in the survey.
The survey found that Trump was generally more popular among those on the political right in many of the nations.