The United States is no longer a “full” democracy because of an “erosion of public trust in public institutions” — a circumstance that benefited Donald Trump’s ascent to the White House, according to a new report.

America now joins nations such as Italy, Japan, and India as a “flawed” democracy – which has free elections but “weak governance, an underdeveloped political culture and low levels of political participation, ” according to Economist Intelligence Unit’s latest Democracy Index.

“Surveys by Pew, Gallup and other polling agencies have confirmed that public confidence in government has slumped to historic lows in the U.S. This has had a corrosive effect on the quality of democracy,” according to the report found.

The result is a “legitimacy crisis” — but it’s not President Trump’s fault, the researchers stressed.

“The US president, Donald Trump, is not to blame for this decline in trust, which predated his election, but he was the beneficiary of it,” the report noted.

It’s the first time in a decade that the US has earned a democracy downgrade, the Washington Post reported.

The downgrade puts America at No. 21 out of 167 countries it ranks. Norway, Iceland and Sweden earned the top spots, while unsurprisingly, North Korea ranked lowest.

The number of full democracies also dropped from 20 in 2015 to 19 in 2016.

The Democracy Index, produced since 2006, examines a country’s electoral process and civil liberties, the functioning of its government, political participation and political culture to come up with a ranking. Countries are then grouped into categories of full or flawed democracies, hybrid regimes and authoritarian regimes.