Trump likes to say that we're "respected again," as if our respect was lost in the mail while President Obama was in office, but global opinion polls tell us a different story.
Trump insisted that we're "respected again" even after the United Nations General Assembly laughed at him, but the Pew Research Center has found that our reputation is in the toilet.
The good news is the world is still capable of judging Trump and the United States separately.
Even though America’s image has declined since Trump’s election, on balance the U.S. still receives positive marks – across the 25 nations polled, a median of 50% have a favorable opinion of the U.S., while 43% offer an unfavorable rating. However, a median of only 27% say they have confidence in President Trump to do the right thing in world affairs; 70% lack confidence in him.
Frustrations with the U.S. in the Trump era are particularly common among some of America’s closest allies and partners. In Germany, where just 10% have confidence in Trump, three-in-four people say the U.S. is doing less these days to address global problems, and the share of the public who believe the U.S. respects personal freedoms is down 35 percentage points since 2008. In France, only 9% have confidence in Trump, while 81% think the U.S. doesn’t consider the interests of countries like France when making foreign policy decisions.
The Pew Research Center also found that most of the world still believes American leadership is better than Chinese leadership, but that could be changing.
At least 70 percent of respondents believe China's influence has grown over the past 10 years and 34 percent believe China is the world's leading economic power compared to 39 percent who believe the United States is.
All things considered, views of the United States are slightly better than I expected and better than I think we deserve.
We may never regain the level of respect President Obama commanded, but that's a very high bar to clear.
Modern Republicans are simply not presidential material.