Overwhelmingly, Americans say they want the U.S. to work with other nations, despite Donald Trump's “America first” approach to foreign policy. | Getty Poll: U.S. should not withdraw from active international role

President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in last year’s presidential election has been hailed as a triumph of Trump’s “America first” foreign policy, but a new survey released Tuesday shows Americans don’t want the U.S. to withdraw from an active international role.

The expansive new survey — conducted in late December by the University of Maryland’s Program for Public Consultation — lays out a framework for how Americans view the nation’s role in international affairs on the eve of Trump’s ascension to the presidency.


Overwhelmingly, Americans say they want the U.S. to work with other nations — and don’t want the U.S. either to go it alone or withdraw from the world stage — despite a general belief that the nation has too often performed as the world’s police officer.

The vast majority of poll respondents, 82 percent, said they think the U.S. should “play a shared leadership role” in world affairs — far greater than the percentages who thought the U.S. “should be the single world leader” (13 percent) or shouldn’t “play any leadership role” (5 percent).

Similarly, 83 percent of respondents agreed that the U.S. “should do its share in efforts to solve international problems with other countries,” while only 8 percent thought the U.S. “should continue to be the preeminent world leader in solving international problems” and 9 percent said the U.S. “should withdraw from most efforts to solve international problems.”

“There is a perception that the public is going through some phase of wanting to disengage [into] isolationism,” said Steven Kull, the director of the University of Maryland’s Program for Public Consultation.

“We basically did not find that,” Kull said. “We do not see any trend toward a desire to disengage. [But] at the same time, there is a certain dissatisfaction with the way the U.S. does engage.”

A 64-percent majority agreed that the U.S. “is playing the role of world policeman more than it should be,” while only 35 percent disagreed. On this question, self-identified Democrats and Republicans were in agreement: 61 percent of each party’s respondents said the U.S. was too engaged as the world’s policeman.

Among self-identified independents, the feeling that the U.S. was acting too much as the world’s policeman was far stronger: A whopping 79 percent of independents agreed with that statement, and only 21 percent disagreed.

Throughout the campaign, Trump expressed preferences for a more inward-looking foreign policy. The first-time candidate derided major trade agreements and said the U.S. should be more circumspect about its commitments through international alliances, like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Trump was sharply critical of U.S. intervention in Libya and Iraq during the campaign — though he expressed support for both actions initially.

At the same time, Trump has pledged to grow the nation’s military, though that’s at odds with some of his past statements about military spending.

There’s evidence in the new poll that Trump has both tapped into prevalent Republican foreign-policy views and is also moving the GOP’s rank-and-file in unexpected directions. While the percentage of Americans overall who agreed the U.S. “should look beyond its own self-interest and do what’s best for the world as a whole” was more than twice those who disagreed with that statement — 70 percent to 30 percent — Republicans were split evenly on that question.

“All together, they’re actually calling for a cooperative form of engagement,” Kull said. “In a way, you could say that they want to do less. But it’s not so much less as they want it to be embedded in a cooperative effort.”

The poll was conducted from December 22-28, surveying 2,980 adults. The survey was administered by Nielsen Scarborough, via its probability-based national panel. Panelists were recruited randomly by mail and telephone.

The survey was released Tuesday in conjunction with the United States Institute of Peace, which is holding an event Tuesday to mark the presidential transition. (POLITICO is a media partner for the event, which is titled “Passing the Baton,” and a POLITICO columnist is moderating one of the event’s panel discussions.)

As for overall U.S. engagement during the outgoing administration, the poll found 46 percent of Americans think the U.S. has been “engaged about the right amount in world affairs” during the Obama administration. Twenty-one percent said the U.S. has been “too engaged in world affairs” under President Barack Obama, and 32 percent said the country has not been “engaged enough in world affairs.”

Republicans are less charitable toward the Obama administration’s foreign policy: Only 15 percent say the U.S. has been “engaged about the right amount” under the outgoing Democratic president, while 29 percent say the country has been “too engaged” and 55 percent say it hasn’t been “engaged enough.”

More than three-quarters of Democrats, 76 percent, said the U.S. has been “engaged about the right amount in world affairs,” the poll shows.