Global image of USA drops under Trump

The global image of the US under Donald Trump has taken a hammering and confidence that he can be trusted to do the right thing is in short supply. Those are some of the key findings of a major survey of more than 40,000 people across 37 countries. The Pew Research Centre says the positive view of the US across the world has fallen from 64 percent under Obama to just 49 percent under President Trump. The falls were much greater in some of Washington’s close allies and neighbours including Mexico and Canada, as well as in European countries such as Germany and Spain. The only two countries where ratings improved compared to Obama were Russia, where confidence in the US president jumped to 53 percent from 11 percent, and Israel, where it rose seven points to 56 percent. But overall trust in the US President has nosedived. It was 64 percent when Obama was in office, now it is just 22 percent. Both the Russian and Chinese Presidents scored higher than Trump. On the positive side for the US, however, the survey showed that 58 percent of respondents had a positive view of Americans in general.