A Pew poll reveals that Trump has a more negative view than Xi, Putin and other countries

The conflict between the Trump administration and China may have started as a trade war, but for many of them it is now a much bigger task: an attempt to contain and control a China rising before it's too late.

This plan could benefit from significant global support, according to new research. But there could also be a problem – the persistent and global unpopularity of President Trump.

Poll data released Monday by 25 countries showed a widespread belief in the world that China is a growing power, perhaps an economic power comparable to that of the United States, but that most people wanted the United States retain their leading role in world affairs.

However, the survey also revealed that the countries surveyed had little confidence in the fact that the current US leader would be doing the right thing in international affairs. Indeed, trust in Trump was lower than that of world leaders such as Germany's Angela Merkel, Frenchman Emmanuel Macron, Russian Vladimir Putin – and even the Chinese Xi Jinping.

The research was published Monday by the Pew Research Center as part of its ongoing research on the US public image abroad. Last year's polls revealed that the median confidence level of the US president in 37 countries dropped from 64 percent at the end of the Obama administration to just 22 percent at the start of the first term. of Trump.

Although the research focused on a smaller number of countries this year, the results suggested a similar overall approval rating for Trump – a median of 70% said they did not trust his ability to act as he did. suitable in international affairs, while 27% said they trusted.

The negative views on Trump prevailed in many traditional American allies. It was found that 75% of Canadians had no confidence or trust in Trump, as did 80% of Swedes, 70% of Britons and 90% of Germans and French. The lowest positive views on Trump were found in Mexico, where only 6% of the country expressed confidence in its leadership.

Israel, where 69 percent of the country's population had at least some faith in Trump to do the right thing in world affairs, is remarkable. Over the past year, the Trump administration has implemented a number of policies interpreted as pro-Israel, including the decision to transfer the US Embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

But the country with the most positive views on Trump was the Philippines, with 78% of positives. Trump praised his "excellent relations" with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, despite the many criticisms made about human rights violations in the country.

The views of the United States were generally more positive – 50% were favorable, versus 43% unfavorable – but it was also a drop from the Obama era, where favorable opinions were 64%. Seventy percent said that the United States ignored the interests of other countries and 37% said the country was doing less to address major global issues (compared to 14% who said the country was doing so). more and 34% said that he was doing the same thing as before).

Unlike Trump, Chinese Xi had the confidence of 34% of the world, while 56% did not trust him. Much of the world has also seen China as a rising global power, if not already the most important economic power.

A median of 70% said China played a bigger role in the world than it was 10 years ago, compared to only 31% who said the same thing in the United States. In a considerable number of countries – including Canada, Germany and Russia – China was already considered the world's economic powerhouse par excellence. However, the United States had only a slight advantage at the median level, with 39% of them qualifying as the world's leading power against 34% of China.

Despite Trump's unpopularity, few countries welcomed a future in which China would be the dominant power over the United States. A median of 63% was favorable to the American leaders, against 19% favorable to China. Only two countries studied had majorities favoring China as the dominant world power: Russia and Tunisia.

The concern for human rights could be the key. Pew found that the negative views on China broadly reflected a concern about how the Chinese government respected the individual freedoms of its own people. Many countries that expressed the most negative opinions about China – such as their neighbors, Japan and South Korea, as well as European countries such as France and Germany – also had major majorities asserting that China restricted individual freedom.

For the Trump administration, this may be an opportunity to rally other nations against China – but it is also a risk. Since the last years of the Obama administration, Pew has seen a decrease in the number of those who say that the US government respects the individual freedoms of its citizens.

The trend was particularly strong this year in Europe: in France, Germany, Poland, Spain and the United States, a combined median showed that a majority (57%) did not think that the United States United respected individual freedom. Forty percent said the United States respects these freedoms.

The Pew Research Center survey was conducted from May to August on random national samples from 915 to 2521 interviews in each of 25 countries. The margin of sampling error for each country varies from plus or minus 2.8 to 5.1 percentage points.

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