Eric Zuesse – Gallup: Trump Globally the Least Respected US President This Century
Trump Globally the Least Respected US President This Century (foto tenor.com)
Gallup: Trump Globally the Least Respected US President This Century
On January 15th, the Gallup World Poll issued its preliminary report for their upcoming “Rating World Leaders: 2021” report. It shows the results that have been tabulated for 60 of the 135 countries where they annually sample global public opinion about US leadership. One especially clear finding from it is that when their final report for all 135 countries will be issued, it will show that among the three US Presidencies on which Gallup has internationally surveyed – which are only the three US Presidents in this century – Trump is clearly the one who is globally respected the least, even lower than George W Bush was respected.
Here are the findings, in each of the 60 nations, and the percentage increase or decrease from Gallup’s last completed survey report, “Rating World Leaders: 2020”.
“Do you approve or disapprove of the job performance of the leadership of the United States?”
% “Approve”
Iceland, 5 was 9
Remarkably, Gallup doesn’t poll in China on this question. Nor does Pew.
Those percentage changes that we’ve just shown total to a decline, among all 60 countries, of 121 percentage points (-121%), or, almost exactly, a -2% change from the 2019 findings that had been reported in Gallup’s “Rating World Leaders: 2020”.
Gallup says that “until all of Gallup’s 2020 fieldwork is complete in a few months, it is still too early to say that the US will see its worst ranking in the history of Gallup’s World Poll.” However, Gallup’s “Rating World Leaders: 2020” report covered 135 lands, and the 60 lands that they have tabulated as of now, for the 2021 report, seem to be a representative sampling of all of those 135, and collectively those 60 populations have reduced their respect for America’s leadership by 2%. In the 2020 report, the global level of approval for America’s leadership was 33%. The all time low had been the 30% figure in 2017, Trump’s first year, a finding which was based on Trump’s promises, not on his performance. The upcoming final Gallup report “Rating World Leaders: 2021” will – if the results from those 60 lands do turn out to be representative of the global findings – produce a 31% global approval level by all of the approximately 135 lands that will be covered in it. For each of Trump’s four years, then, the global percentages will have been (for each one of his four years) 30%, 31%, 33%, and (now, in his final year) 31%. Each year, it was even lower than the prior record low, of George W Bush, had been, at 34% in 2008.
There was higher disapproval than approval of America’s leadership during the Presidencies of George W Bush and of Donald Trump than there was approval of either US President’s leadership. Strikingly, however, there was higher approval than disapproval during (and throughout) the two terms of office of Barack Obama. That Nobel Peace Prize winner was and is internationally admired. Crazy, but true: he was an international charmer.
Here are summarized (with links to the evidence regarding) the actual chief international achievements of each of these three US Presidents.
George W Bush destroying Iraq, and destroying Afghanistan.
Barack Obama destroying Syria, and destroying Ukraine, while continuing Bush’s destructions of Iraq and of Afghanistan.
Donald Trump destroying Iran, and destroying Venezuela, while continuing his predecessors’ destructions of Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Ukraine. He also made the destruction of Palestine even worse than it had previously been.
So, the question regarding incoming US President Joe Biden will be whether he will continue this tradition further, or reverse it. Because, it’s really all the same tradition, throughout all three US Presidencies this century. By contrast, global perceptions are that those three US Presidents were drastically different from one another.
On 15 September 290290, Pew bannered “US Image Plummets Internationally as Most Say Country Has Handled Corona Virus Badly” and reported that
The publics surveyed also see Trump more negatively than other world leaders. Among the six leaders included on the survey, Angela Merkel receives the highest marks. A median of 76% across the nations polled have confidence in the German chancellor. French President Emmanuel Macron also gets largely favorable reviews. Ratings for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson are roughly split. Ratings for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping are overwhelmingly negative, although not as negative as those for Trump.
Right above that was this graph, which shows starkly the false European perception that Barack Obama was vastly superior to George W Bush and Donald Trump.
Low confidence in Trump in Western Europa (foto Pew Research Center)
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic versus Republican Economic Records, 1910 – 2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.