The Trump era has seen a decline in America’s global reputation

 

The Trump era has seen a decline in America’s global reputation

The United States and China are fiercely competing across domains—including in global public opinion. The 2024 presidential election will have a crucial impact on perceptions of U.S. leadership around the world, and the next administration would be well served to consider how global audiences viewed the United States and China during the Trump and Biden administrations.
Under the Trump administration, international approval of U.S. leadership fell to a historic low, with confidence in President Donald Trump roughly on par with confidence in Chinese President Xi Jinping. Trump’s exit from multilateral institutions like the World Health Organization and treaties like the Paris Agreement, restrictive policies on immigration, and aggressive use of tariffs alienated U.S. allies and non-allies alike. Global views of the United States and China worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic by 20 percentage points and 16 percentage points, respectively.
The return of U.S. global engagement under President Joe Biden and his administration’s emphasis on strengthening ties with allies and partners boosted confidence in U.S. leadership. But with the outbreak of the wars in Ukraine and in Israel and Gaza and concerns about U.S.-China competition, global views of U.S. leadership have dimmed, with confidence in the Biden administration sliding from 58% in 2022 to 43% in 2024. China has narrowed the gap in favorability in the Global South and particularly in Southeast Asia. These developments are concerning as the United States’ soft power—that is, its ability to inspire cooperation among partners who admire U.S. values, culture, and vision—has been indispensable for maintaining America’s leading position in the international arena. As such, there is a pressing need for the incoming administration to reaffirm American global leadership and to strengthen the United States’ reputation as a force for peace and stability.
Evolving views of U.S. and Chinese leadership

The Trump administration (2017–2020)
Global views of the United States fell to a low point after Donald Trump took office in 2017. Just a few months into the Trump administration, less than half of the respondents surveyed across 37 countries by the Pew Research Center had a positive view of the United States compared to 64% at the end of the Obama presidency. The 2017 BBC World Services Poll shows the same trend—compared to 2014, the United States saw the most substantial decline in ratings out of all the countries polled, with double-digit increases in negative views among several of its NATO allies, including the United Kingdom, Spain, France, and Turkey. A growing share of people around the world also began to see U.S. power and influence as a “major threat” to their country in 2017 and 2018. Across 34 countries in Asia, Europe, Africa, and Latin America, only 22% of respondents surveyed by Pew in 2017 had confidence in Trump to do the right thing regarding global affairs, in comparison to 28% that had confidence in Xi. Trump’s signature policy proposals, including withdrawing the United States from international climate agreements and trade agreements, plans to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border, and the “Muslim ban” were all overwhelmingly disfavored by those who were surveyed. More than 60% of respondents spanning 37 nations surveyed by Pew in 2017 described Trump as “arrogant,” “intolerant” and even “dangerous.”

In 2017, Germany replaced the United States as the top-rated global power according to Gallup’s 2018 Rating World Leaders report. The median global approval rating of the job performance of U.S. leadership fell from 48% in 2016 to a historic low of 30% in 2017, slightly below that of China. In the Pew’s 2019 Global Attitudes Survey, Trump again received more negative ratings than Xi. Among traditional U.S. allies such as Germany, France, Spain, and the Netherlands, approximately three-quarters or more of respondents to the survey lacked confidence in Trump. Trump’s rating was especially poor in Mexico, where 89% did not have confidence in his ability to do the right thing in international affairs. But Trump enjoyed greater favorability among international audiences on the political right, with right-wing populist party supporters more likely to endorse his key policies. For instance, 67% of French respondents who had a positive view of National Rally supported Trump’s immigration policy, but just 22% of those who disliked National Rally held the same stance. However, out of all of Trump’s major policies listed in the 2019 survey, the increase of tariffs and fees on imported goods received the most backlash from respondents generally.
Positive ratings of China also declined during this period with the intensification of tensions between Washington and Beijing and the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, albeit by a smaller amount. The share of people who evaluate China positively dropped by double-digits in nearly half of the Western European countries surveyed by Pew in 2019 (Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands), though opinions of China in Global South countries remained mostly favorable. In Japan, 85% of respondents said they had an unfavorable opinion of China—the most negative among all countries surveyed, while Russians held the most positive views.

By 2020, most people had unfavorable views of both China and the United States. Confidence in Trump and Xi fell to their lowest points at 17% and 19%, respectively.

The Trump era has seen a decline in America’s global reputation

Many world leaders were quick to offer congratulatory messages to President-elect Joe Biden after his victory in this month’s U.S. presidential election. They included Germany’s Angela Merkel, Canada’s Justin Trudeau and others who have had tense relations with President Donald Trump. Citing Biden’s commitment to rejoining the Paris climate accord, France’s Emmanuel Macron suggested it is now possible to “make our planet great again.”
The French leader’s sentiments are probably shared by many ordinary citizens around the world. In international surveys conducted by Pew Research Center over the past few years, Trump has generally received lower ratings than either of his two predecessors – Barack Obama and George W. Bush – with relatively few people approving of his handling of international affairs.
Indeed, no more than a quarter of adults expressed confidence in Trump in any of the 13 countries surveyed by the Center this year. And in many nations where we have survey data for the past three administrations, the lowest ratings we’ve seen for any president have come during Trump’s time in office. For instance, just 5% of Mexicans voiced confidence in Trump’s leadership in 2017, the smallest share who expressed that view in surveys that date back to 2007.

Trump’s unpopularity has had a significant negative effect on America’s overall image. Ratings for the United States plummeted after he took office in 2017, and they have declined further over the past year, at least in part due to the widespread perception that the U.S. has handled the coronavirus pandemic poorly. In fact, in several nations that are key U.S. allies and partners, the share of the public with a favorable view of the U.S. is at its lowest point in nearly two decades of polling.

For example, just 41% of adults in the United Kingdom expressed a favorable opinion of the U.S. this year, the lowest percentage registered in any Center survey there. In France and Germany, ratings for the U.S. are essentially as low as they were in March 2003, at the height of U.S.-European tensions over the Iraq War. U.S. favorability also reached all-time lows this year in Japan, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands and Sweden.

What have people around the world not liked about Trump? Our 37-nation survey in 2017 found that many did not like his personal characteristics or leadership style. Majorities said he was arrogant, intolerant and dangerous. Few considered him well-qualified or believed that he cares about ordinary people.
There has also been considerable opposition to many of Trump’s policies, including his administration’s withdrawal from climate change agreements and the Iran nuclear deal. Trump’s efforts to make it more difficult to enter the U.S. have also been widely unpopular.
Across 33 nations surveyed in 2019, a median of 55% disapproved of the U.S. allowing fewer immigrants into the country; just 34% approved. A median of six-in-ten opposed building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. And majorities opposed Trump’s efforts to erect trade barriers in addition to physical barriers, with a median of nearly seven-in-ten (68%) disapproving of increased U.S. tariffs or fees on imported goods.

While America’s image has suffered during Trump’s presidency, the U.S. still has many “soft power” assets. For example, people around the world generally still embrace U.S. popular culture: A median of 65% of adults across 37 countries polled in 2017 said they like American music, movies and television.
And people still mostly associate the U.S. with the idea of individual liberty, although there has been a decline on this front in recent years. The share of adults who believe the U.S. government respects the personal freedoms of its people has dropped in many nations recently, including Germany, Canada and Australia. While this decline has continued during Trump’s presidency, it began during the Obama era. (The first decrease on this measure occurred between 2013 and 2014, as news broke about the U.S. National Security Agency’s surveillance around the world. We saw further declines in 2015 following protests in Ferguson, Missouri, in response to the police killing of Michael Brown in August 2014.)
It’s too soon to know the extent to which a new president and new policies can turn around America’s battered image, but a change like this has happened before. After years of relatively poor ratings during the Bush administration, views of the U.S. improved significantly in many regions after Obama took office in 2009. Obama’s policies weren’t uniformly popular over the course of his presidency, but people generally saw his approach to world affairs as more multilateralist than Bush’s, and ratings for the U.S. remained relatively high in most nations throughout his tenure.