Pew survey: US global image plummets

The global image of the United States has deteriorated dramatically since President Donald Trump took office in January, according to the latest Pew Center survey.

In the survey of 37 countries in Latin America, North America, Europe, Asia and Africa, the public's positive view of the US has plunged. Favorability ratings have only risen in Russia and Vietnam.

Specifically, 49 percent said they have a favorable view of the US under Trump while 64 percent had a favorable view at the end of the presidency of Barack Obama. A total of 39 percent said they have an unfavorable view of the US now, compared with 26 percent under Obama.

A median of just 22 percent expressed confidence in Trump to do the right thing in world affairs. It contrasted to the final years of Obama's presidency when the median rating was 64 percent.

Those who expressed no confidence account for 74 percent, compared with 23 percent for Obama, according to the survey of more than 40,000 people conducted from Feb 16 to May 8.

The survey finds that most people say Trump is arrogant, intolerant and dangerous but also a strong leader. Some 39 percent described him as charismatic, and only 26 percent said he is well-qualified to be president.

"What we see this year is that if you look at the confidence measure, there is a big shift of how the world sees the US president," Richard Wike, director of Global Attitude Research of Pew Research Center, said on Tuesday in a discussion about the survey at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

The survey shows that the sharp decline in the global public trust of the US president is especially pronounced among some of the US' closest allies in Europe and Asia, as well as neighboring Mexico and Canada.

Across the 37 nations polled, Trump gets higher marks than Obama in only two countries: Russia and Israel.

China was not surveyed this year. Wike told China Daily that a variety of factors are used in choosing countries, without specifying them. He said Pew tries to pick some large countries that are politically and economically important, but occasionally a particular country can't be included.

He said Pew will ask about Trump in the next survey in China. He didn't answer whether China could be another country where Trump could have a relatively high favorable rating.

Pew, however, will release another survey soon comparing the global images of China and the US.

The survey also finds that the ratings for Trump look very similar to those for George W. Bush at the end of his term, especially in Western Europe.

About 46 percent said they dislike the American idea of democracy while 44 percent said they like it.

Most countries in the survey said their relations will get worse than better, but the prevailing view is that they will stay the same.

The survey also examines attitudes toward five major policy proposals that Trump has supported. Globally, none of them are popular. They include Trump's withdrawal from the nuclear weapons agreement with Iran, the Paris climate accord and major trade agreements, tighter restrictions on people entering the US from some Muslim-majority countries and the building of a wall along the US-Mexico border.

It also finds that views of Americans are positive except in the Middle East. Wike expressed the negative rating for the US in the Middle East is "pretty consistent" over time.

Shadi Hamid, a senior fellow at the Project on US Relations with the Islamic World at the Brookings Institution, pointed out that the big picture is that the US has a pretty bad record in supporting democracy in the Middle East.

"That's not the problem of one president or another. That's a five- or six-decade thing and pretty consistent," he said.

Hamid dismissed the excessive negative view for Trump over the next few years, cautioning that people should disentangle their personal dislike for Trump.

He believes that dislike for Trump by journalists and analysts makes it more difficult to be objective about Trump's foreign policy.

chenweihua@chinadailyusa.com