International attitudes towards the United States are far more positive during the tenure of US President Joe Biden than under his predecessor Donald Trump. This is the result of a survey by the independent Washington polling institute Pew Research Center. According to this, 59 percent of respondents worldwide see the USA positively, while 30 percent view it rather negatively.
By far the strongest support is in Poland. According to the study, 93 percent of people in the former Eastern Bloc state have a positive view of the USA and only four percent have a negative view. Much of the increased reputation is due to aid from Washington in connection with Russia’s war against Ukraine, a neighbor of Poland, the pollsters write. The United States is also very popular in Israel, South Korea, Nigeria, Japan and Kenya. At 57 to 40 percent, the majority of people in Germany are also clearly in a friendly mood towards the USA. Among the countries involved, only Hungary did the majority not have a positive image of the United States.
For their study, the institute surveyed more than 27,000 people from 23 countries this spring: Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Poland, Hungary, Greece, Israel, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Canada, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina.
According to the survey, Biden himself is also mostly well received abroad: 54 percent of those surveyed said that they trusted the US President to “do the right thing in world politics”. Only 39 percent have little trust in the 80-year-old.
Just a few months ago, Trump had criticized the policy of the Biden administration with the words: “We are being laughed at by the whole world!” According to Pew, however, the opposite is actually the case: according to the institute’s data, global confidence in American leadership had declined dramatically in the four years under Trump, and was at record lows in countries as diverse as Germany, Brazil and India. Biden’s election victory changed that immediately, albeit not everywhere.
The difference is most significant in middle-income countries like Brazil, the researchers report. There, Biden’s 44 percent trust rating this year is a significant improvement over Trump’s 29 percent in 2019. In Mexico, too, trust in the US President has almost reached the level of the Obama administration at 43 percent, after falling during the Trump government had almost plummeted to single digits.
“In every country, Biden’s current ratings are higher than Trump’s, but lower than the peaks during the Obama presidency,” Pew notes.
Of the 23 countries selected for the survey, many are US allies, as the institute itself notes. Opponents of the United States such as China or Russia were not involved. Therefore, while the results are representative of broad regions, they do not reflect the world’s range of opinions about the United States.
Sources: Pew Research Center, Donald Trump on Truth Social, The Hill, Washington Post
