Opinion polls on the USA: Trump’s fans in the distance

The lawns along the National Mall in Washington, DC have remained conspicuously empty in recent days. Many Americans don’t feel like celebrating their country’s 250th birthday. Donald Trump’s poll numbers in his own country are in the basement – recently mainly because of his disastrous Iran war and the abandonment of his America Firstdoctrine that drove up gas and food prices for his constituents.

The president’s unpopularity at home is reflected in his battered reputation USA reflected abroad: On the proud 250th anniversary of the world’s oldest democracy, America’s reputation has been seriously damaged. A new survey by the US opinion institute Pew Research shows how dramatically the country’s reputation has plummeted since the beginning of Trump’s second term in office: Only one in four of 40,000 respondents in 36 countries still have confidence in America’s global leadership role. More than half now consider the United States to be an unreliable partner; In Germany, the number of those who consider the USA to be reliable has fallen from 83 percent to 39 percent since the last survey in 2022. The values ​​are similarly poor in former partner countries such as Canada, the Netherlands and Sweden. Even the global right in the West is turning away: among populist-conservative supporters in Italy, approval of US policies fell from 60 percent to 31 percent and in Great Britain from 62 percent to 48 percent. In Israel alone, a large majority still supports the USA.

In the non-Western world, America has always been viewed with ambivalence, as it has always been an object of mistrust and longing at the same time. Those who despised the country often secretly admired it at the same time. Now the Trump administration is also alienating states that rely on the USA as a partner against the increasing influence China’s have set.

In India, people celebrated Trump’s return to the White House in 2024, also because he promised a tougher approach towards China. But then Trump imposed 50 percent tariffs on Indian products and moved closer to Pakistan; The US government gave in to the trade conflict with China. Trump has since reduced tariffs for India to 18 percent. But relations between the two countries are damaged – or, as the British think tank Chatham House concludes, “scarred by a year of hostility.” According to the Pew Research survey, only 39 percent of Indians still trust Washington’s policies. A majority sees Russia as India’s most important partner.

In general, there is a lot to be said about the USA’s strategic turn towards Asia, which Barack Obama began Donald Trump wanted to continue, there was little left: there is growing concern in Taiwan that they will be abandoned by the USA. In the wake of the Iran War, America has deployed aircraft carriers, thousands of Marines and air defense systems from the South China Sea, Japan and South Korea to the Middle East. The American security umbrella for China’s neighbors, who see themselves threatened by Beijing’s territorial ambitions, has noticeably thinned. Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia also obtain more than 50 percent of their oil needs via the Strait of Hormuz; the closure of the strait hit them harder than other regions of the world.

China is the diplomatic beneficiary of Trump’s rubbish policy, an analysis by the London-based company Focaldata shows: In votes in the United Nations, states are now increasingly voting on China’s side, while the USA is increasingly maneuvering itself into the diplomatic sidelines. In February 2025, the United States, Russia, Belarus and North Korea voted together against a resolution condemning Russia for its war of aggression in Ukraine. In the Israel-Gaza conflict, the Trump administration blocked resolutions calling for the protection of civilians in Gaza and an unconditional ceasefire. In votes on climate, health and migration, the USA repeatedly stood in the way, while a majority of Western countries voted with China.

In Latin America, current perceptions of the US range from pro-American in Colombia – where a majority sees Venezuela as an enemy – to predominantly negative in Mexico, where aggressive migration policies and US tariffs are met with rejection. What’s surprising is that even in Argentina, two-thirds of those surveyed have a poor opinion of the US president. While President Javier Milei has a bromance with Donald Trump, i.e. a close male friendship, many Argentines perceived Trump’s interference in the 2025 midterm elections as an attempt at blackmail.

The highest price for Trump’s foreign policy has so far been paid by people in African countries: according to estimates by the Washington Center for Global Development, the American cuts in humanitarian aid have caused up to a million deaths – most of them in Africa. According to the WHO, five million people in Sudan alone lost access to food aid and medical care. Not all funds have been cut, but the Trump administration wants to shape relations with the continent differently: in the future, aid will only be available in exchange for access to copper and other critical raw materials. Surprisingly, the Pew Research survey measured some of the highest poll numbers for the USA in Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana, despite double-digit losses since 2022: Two thirds of those surveyed there see Donald Trump’s policies positively, which experts at the institute attribute, among other things, to the large proportion of conservative Christians in the population.

The most remarkable finding of the survey: More respondents worldwide express trust in Xi Jinping (34 percent) and Vladimir Putin (31 percent) than in Donald Trump (23 percent). This number is supported by the Democracy Perception Index from the Berlin opinion research institute Nira Data. It found in May that on a scale of -100 to +100, perceptions of the US have fallen from +22 to -6 in two years, putting them behind China, which comes in at +7, and just ahead of Russia, which scores -11.

Even during Trump’s first term in office, America’s poll ratings around the world plummeted. They recovered again with Joe Biden’s election victory. In his second term in office, Donald Trump is trying to permanently tear down the old world order that he had previously denounced. There is currently little to suggest that it can be rebuilt – and that the lost trust in the USA will easily return.