A new poll shows the world's approval of United States leadership has drastically declined — even amongst close allies — since President Donald Trump took office.
U.S. leadership worldwide has grown weaker under one year of Trump than at any point during the Bush or Obama administrations, a new Gallup report showed. The median approval rating for U.S. leadership across 134 countries has hit a new low of 30 percent.
The approval ratings were based on Gallup World Poll surveys conducted last year between March and November. The new low is down 18 percentage points from the 48 percent approval rating in former President Barack Obama's final year of office. Under Bush, the lowest median approval rating was 34 percent, in his final year, meaning the Trump administration is more widely disapproved than the Bush administration was — even after the Bush administration launched two major wars that have yet to come to a real close.
"Disapproval of U.S. leadership increased almost as much as approval declined," Gallup said. "The 43 percent median disapproval, up 15 points from the previous year, set a new record as well, not only for the U.S. but for any other major global power that Gallup has asked about in the past decade."
Even further, approval of U.S. leadership declined significantly across 65 countries out of 134, including countries that are longtime allies of the U.S. "Portugal, Belgium, Norway and Canada led the declines worldwide, with approval ratings of U.S. leadership dropping 40 points or more in each country. While majorities in each of these countries approved of U.S. leadership in 2016, majorities disapproved in 2017," the poll showed.
Approval of the U.S. increased, however, in countries such as Israel, Macedonia and Belarus.
The decline in approval abroad doesn't come as a surprise, considering some of the brash decisions made by the Trump administration in regards to the U.S. and the international community, who both are traditionally on opposite ends of issues. On June 1, Trump announced he would withdraw the U.S. from the landmark Paris climate agreement, which drew global ire. The U.S. now stands alone as the only country to refuse to join the accord.
Trump's recent recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel was another global shakeup that was met with widespread criticism around the world and led to a vote by the United Nations that condemned the move. Shortly after the vote, U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley, announced America would slash its budget to the international body by $285 million.
From two major policy perspectives, Trump has rattled the global community, but so have his unapologetic words and tweets.
Trump took personal shots at London Mayor Sadiq Khan, which were entirely out of context, last June following a terrorist attack, which he proceeded to use as a vehicle for his ban on travel from several Muslim-majority nations. Last September the president also quickly fired tweets from the hip that determined an explosion on a crowded London Tube train was a terror attack, before British authorities had completed an investigation. U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May said his tweets were not helpful. These are merely a chunk of Trump's international gaffes.
Behind closed doors, Trump made racist remarks about countries he called "s**thole" and said that he would rather have Norwegian immigrants.
The drastic dip in approval ratings of U.S. leadership across the globe only makes logical sense following a year of saber-rattling in Washington.
Shares