US IMAGE SINKS GLOBALLY AS TRUMP MISHANDLES COVID-19: PEW RESEARCH

Since Donald Trump took office as president, the image of the United States has suffered across many regions of the globe. As a new 13-nation Pew Research Center survey of 26,000 respondents illustrates, America’s reputation has declined further over the past year among many key allies and partners. In several countries, the share of the public with a favorable view of the US is as low as it has been at any point since the Center began polling on this topic nearly two decades ago, Richard Wike, Janell Fetterolf and Mara Mordecai wrote for Pew Research on September 16, 2020.

For instance, just 41% in the United Kingdom express a favorable opinion of the US, the lowest percentage registered in any Pew Research Center survey there. In France, only 31% see the US positively, matching the grim ratings from March 2003, at the height of US-France tensions over the Iraq War. Germans give the US particularly low marks on the survey: 26% rate the US favorably, similar to the 25% in the same March 2003 poll.

Part of the decline over the past year is linked to how the U.S. had handled the coronavirus pandemic. Across the 13 nations surveyed, a median of just 15% say the US has done a good job of dealing with the outbreak. In contrast, most say the World Health Organization (WHO) and European Union have done a good job, and in nearly all nations people give their own country positive marks for dealing with the crisis (the US and UK are notable exceptions).

“Pew Research Center surveys have found mixed or relatively negative views of the US in Canada and Western Europe since 2017 and the beginning of the Trump administration. In the current survey, views of the US have deteriorated further, with a median of only 34% across the 13 countries surveyed expressing a positive view. Roughly one-third of Canadians (35%) view their neighbor to the south positively. A similar share across Europe holds this view (median of 33%), though favorable opinions range from a low of roughly a quarter in Belgium (24%) and Germany (26%) to a high of about four-in-ten or more in the UK (41%) and Italy (45%). Many in Australia and Japan have an unfavorable opinion of the U.S., while South Korea stands out as the only country surveyed where a majority (59%) views the US positively,” the authors concluded.

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