Are voters happy with America’s global standing? Poll shows near-record disapproval
The majority of Americans, 65%, are dissatisfied with the country’s global standing, according to a new Gallup poll, which comes as the U.S. remains embroiled in wars in Ukraine and Israel.
Meanwhile, just 33% of Americans are satisfied with the country’s standing in the world, marking the lowest such rating in seven years, according to the poll released on March 11.
The poll, which sampled 1,016 adults from Feb. 1 -20, has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Gallup has tracked Americans’ satisfaction with the country’s global position since 2000, which has been trending downwards from a high of 71% in 2002, the year after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
This year’s 33% satisfaction rate is the fourth-lowest on record, with lower ratings recorded only in 2008 and 2009 — amid prolonged wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — and in 2017, during former President Trump’s first year in office.
The poll also found that only 42% of American adults believe the U.S. is viewed somewhat or very favorably by the rest of the world. This figure is also at its lowest point since 2017.
On the other hand, a majority of Americans, 57%, believe the country is viewed somewhat or very unfavorably by the world.
These findings largely align with the Gallup World Poll, which revealed median approval of American leadership among occupants of 137 countries was at 41%.
Additionally, only 37% of Americans believe President Joe Biden is respected by the heads of other countries, while 58% say he is not respected. Similarly, only 37% of Americans believed Trump was respected by foreign leaders in 2020, his last year in office.
There is a large partisan gap in opinions of foreign leaders’ respect for Biden, with 74% of Democrats and only 3% of Republicans believing he is respected on the world stage.
Partisan divisions have been a staple in these ratings for the past two decades, with Republicans and Democrats expressing high positivity about the country and the president when their party is in the White House.
The poll comes as the U.S. enters its second year of funding Ukraine in its war against Russia since the invasion in February 2022. The war has led to around 500,000 deaths or injuries on both sides, according to an August report from the New York Times.
About half of Americans believe the country is providing the right amount of support or not enough, while 31% said it is giving too much, according to a Pew Research Center poll in December.
The poll also comes as the U.S. continues to provide military support to Israel, which has been engaged in a war against Hamas in Gaza since October. More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, many of whom are women and children, according to NPR.
Americans are nearly evenly split over whether the U.S. should provide more military aid to Israel, with 48% saying they would be less likely to support a presidential candidate who continues supporting Israel and 47% saying the opposite, according to a Ipsos poll in March.
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