World Opinion of Trump and U.S.
At a campaign rally in Alabama, President Donald Trump said “the world is starting to respect the United States of America again.” Surveys suggest otherwise.
The Pew Global Attitudes Project
found that citizens in 35 out of 37 countries have less confidence in Trump than they did in former President Obama. In some cases, far less confidence.
For example, 86 percent of Germans said they had “a lot of confidence” or “some confidence” in Obama, but only 11 percent said the same of Trump.
Separately, the Pew Global Attitudes Project measures foreign opinion of the United States. That survey found that only two of the 37 countries have a more favorable opinion of the United States since Trump took office.
The president made
his remarks about world respect at a campaign rally, which got
far more media attention for his criticism of professional football players who kneel during the pregame national anthem.
Trump, Sept. 22: It’s one of the greatest honors of my life to represent the American people on that world stage. And I will tell you, the world is starting to respect the United States of America again.
We cannot find any surveys that measure “respect,” and the White House could not provide any. However, the Pew Global Attitudes Project
since 2002 has been tracking world confidence in U.S. presidents and world opinion of the U.S. in general. Pew reports a sharp decline in both.
In June, the Pew Research Center
released the results of its surveys in 37 countries and found that among those nations “a median of just 22% has confidence in Trump to do the right thing when it comes to international affairs.” By contrast, “a median of 64% expressed confidence” in Obama.
The decline in confidence in the U.S. president has been severe in some countries since Trump took office on Jan. 20, 2017, and it “is especially pronounced among some of America’s closest allies in Europe and Asia, as well as neighboring Mexico and Canada,” Pew found.
https://www.factcheck.org/2017/09/world-opinion-trump-u-s/