Perspectives

Other countries’ perception of Donald Trump

According to a 2018 Gallup poll, during the first year of Donald Trump’s presidency, the global approval rating of the US leadership’s job performance dropped almost 20 points from Barack Obama’s last year as President, which stood at 48 per cent. This led to the US being replaced as the top-rated global power by Germany.

The relationship between the US and Mexico suffered after Trump’s negative remarks on illegal Mexican immigrants, and his insistence that Mexico should pay for the US-Mexico border wall. Trump’s threats to terminate the North American Free Trade Agreement, as well as his personal attacks on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also created tension between the US and Canada. The Gallup poll also found that Mexico and Canada are more likely to approve of China than of US.

In Europe, the approval rating dropped considerably, with only three countries showing a favorable opinion of Trump’s US: Kosovo, Albania, and Poland. A majority approval is new for Poland; this has been attributed to a tendency in Poland’s government to adopt similar policies to Trump’s, and to Poland’s interest in building a relationship with Trump in the hopes that the US will establish a permanent military base in Poland.

The lowest rating in Europe was expressed by Russia, which is not surprising given the historically strained relationship between Russia and the US. However, this relationship seems to improve as Trump has often expressed his interest in building more trust between the two nations. Alongside Russia, Iceland, Portugal, and Sweden give the US the lowest approval rating in Europe, which sits at lower than 13 per cent in each coun...