International survey finds less confidence in Trump’s ability to lead than in Putin’s or Xi’s

The global image of the US has sunk to historic lows since Donald Trump took office, a survey of 25 countries has found, with only Israelis, Russians and Kenyans showing an increase in positive attitudes.

In the Pew Research Center poll, respondents generally had less confidence in Trump’s ability to lead than they did in Vladimir Putin’s and Xi Jinping’s.

A year after confidence in the US collapsed during the real estate tycoon’s first year in power, favourable views of the country remained low in 2018, especially among the US’s closest allies.

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In Canada, whose prime minister, Justin Trudeau, Trump has called “dishonest and weak”, only 39% of respondents had a positive view of the US, down from 65% at the end of the Obama presidency.

For Mexico, a neighbour Trump wants to isolate with his plans to build a wall, this figure halved from 66% to 32%. The UK was split on its opinion of the US under Trump, with 50% having favourable views, although that was down 11 points since Obama left office.

Among the countries that bucked the trend, the most significant increase was in Russia, up 11 points, yet it had by far the lowest score under Obama – only 15% of respondents looked on the US favourably at the end of his tenure.

Positive views in Kenya have jumped seven points to 70%, and in Israel, where Trump has implemented policies seen as favourable to the country, including declaring Jerusalem as its capital to the outrage of Palestinians, they stood at 82%, up two points.

Despite the plunge, on balance, a median of 50% of respondents across the nations surveyed had a favourable opinion of the US, compared with 43% whose views were negative.

However, Trump’s personal image remained very low, with a median of only 27% saying they have confidence in him to do the right thing in world affairs. Russia’s Putin scored 30% and China’s Xi 24%, while Germany’s Angela Merkel enjoyed a 52% score and France’s Emmanuel Macron was on 46%.

In most countries, a majority said they had no confidence in Trump. Only 7% of Spanish people, 9% of French people and 10% of Germans said they trusted Trump’s leadership. Even in Russia, where the US’s image has grown more positive under the current administration, Trump’s had fallen by 34 percentage points since last year.

In South Korea, however, faith in Trump surged by 27 points, possibly buoyed by peacemaking efforts with North Korea, although the rise only brought Trump’s rating up to 44%.

At the UN general assembly in New York last week, Trump’s speech to world leaders was met with laughter when he claimed to have achieved more in his two years in the White House than almost any US president.

The Pew survey was conducted between May and August and based on more than 26,000 interviews.