U.S. Leadership Image Suffers Most Among Friendly Nations
by Zacc Ritter
After Donald Trump's election, U.S. allies and adversaries scrambled
to evaluate whether his unorthodox rhetoric foreshadowed substantive shifts
in U.S. foreign policy. The "America First" agenda raised questions
about his administration's willingness to defend and promote the liberal
world order that the U.S. had instrumentally shaped since 1945.
Reflecting this uncertainty, the median approval rating of U.S. leadership
fell from 48% in 2016 to
a record-low 30% in 2017. To understand where the sharpest declines occurred, we examined
salient country-level attributes often associated with key U.S. strategic
partners. The most significant declines in U.S. leadership approval occurred
in freer nations connected to the U.S. through a dense network of political
and economic ties.
Fraying the Ties That Bind
Residents of allied nations (those that have formal alliances with the
U.S.) are less likely to approve of U.S. leadership under Trump than are
those in non-allied nations (36.8% and 48.1%, respectively). The opposite
was true in 2016, when 63.5% of residents from allied nations approved
of U.S. leadership, compared with 53.9% from non-allied countries.
This drop suggests Trump's transactional style and rhetoric -- for
example, expressing skepticism about the U.S. commitment to NATO to encourage
greater alliance burden-sharing -- may affect how populations in countries
that are U.S. allies view U.S. leadership.
U.S. Strategic Partners
Figures represent the % approving of U.S. leadership
Obama (2016)
Trump (2017)
Difference
%
%
pct. pts.
Not ally
53.9
48.1
-5.8
Ally
63.5
36.8
-26.7
Gallup World Poll
Free Fall in Free Societies
Residents living in countries that Freedom House rated as Free (those with
robust civil liberties and political rights) in 2017 registered an absolute
decline in approval of 17.6 percentage points from 2016 to 2017. Conversely,
the drop in the most restrictive societies was marginal (0.5 points),
meaning the average U.S. leadership approval rating is slightly lower
in Free societies than in Not Free societies under Trump.
In contrast, U.S. leadership approval ratings during the last year of the
George W. Bush administration were generally low but were higher in Free
nations (48.0%) than in Not Free ones (41.6%). While many observers associate
both administrations with a preference for unilateral over multilateral
action, Trump's muted rhetoric about democracy promotion and human
rights protection may partly explain this reversal.
Freedom House Status
Figures represent the % approving of U.S. leadership
Obama (2016)
Trump (2017)
Difference
%
%
pct. pts.
Not Free
44.0
43.5
-0.5
Partly Free
59.3
47.3
-12.0
Free
59.7
42.1
-17.6
Gallup World Poll
Substantial Losses Among Closest U.S. Trading Partners
The degree of economic interdependence -- a country's imports from
and exports to the U.S. as a percentage of its total imports and exports
-- is another metric for evaluating the changing landscape of global opinion
toward the United States.
Trump's rejection of continued negotiations over the Trans-Pacific
Partnership and his forced renegotiation of the North American Free Trade
Agreement, as well as the uncertain future of the Transatlantic Trade
and Investment Partnership, make economic relations relevant to popular
views on U.S. leadership. The decline in approval from 2016 to 2017 is
more modest (6.5 points) in nations whose trade with the U.S. is nominal,
but precipitous (29.1 points) among the United States' closest trading partners.
U.S. Economic Interdependence
Figures represent the % approving of U.S. leadership
Obama (2016)
Trump (2017)
Difference
%
%
pct. pts.
Low interdependence
65.0
58.5
-6.5
Medium interdependence
52.4
44.1
-8.3
High interdependence
66.8
37.7
-29.1
NOTE: Low interdependence = less than 2.4% of a nation's total trade
is with U.S.; medium interdependence = 2.4% to 10.6% of total trade is
with U.S.; high interdependence = more than 10.6% of total trade is with U.S.
Gallup World Poll
Implications
U.S. leadership has an image problem. Positive public opinion toward U.S.
leadership has diminished dramatically in less than one year, especially
among wellsprings of traditional support.
Some foreign policy experts believe a positive image abroad is a means
to an end. Higher approval reflects a component of U.S. soft power, a
reservoir of goodwill that the U.S. can use to influence other countries.
The right to lead is conferred to a benign superpower when it practices
self-constraint and plays by the rules.
Trump and his surrogates have periodically extended an olive branch by
emphasizing that America First does not mean America Alone. Whether such
episodes of measured rhetoric will change elite, let alone popular, opinion
of U.S. leadership and the degree to which the current administration
cares how the world views the U.S. are open questions.
Gallup Global Managing Partner Jon Clifton discussed the major findings
from Gallup's global survey on U.S. leadership on C-SPAN.Watch now.
Survey Methods
Results are based on face-to-face and telephone interviews with approximately
1,000 adults, aged 15 and older, in each country or area in more than
130 countries in 2016 and 2017. For results based on the total samples
at the country level, the margin of sampling error ranges from ±2.0
percentage points to ±5.1 percentage points at the 95% confidence
level. The margin of error reflects the influence of data weighting. In
addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties
in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of
public opinion polls.
NOTE ABOUT MODEL: The country-level analysis used a random-effects model. In addition to
all variables in the respondent-level model, this model included a dummy
variable for U.S. strategic partners, Freedom House categories and economic
interdependence. Both models used projected weights of respondents proportional
to the population size of the country. The predicted probabilities changed
values for one country-level factor, holding other individual-level and
country-level attributes at their mean values.
