Courtesy of Pam Martens
Gallup’s Global Leadership Ratings — 2019
In what has to be the most diplomatic understatement of the year, Jon Clifton, the Global Managing Partner of the polling organization, Gallup, had this to say with the release of the company’s 2019 “Rating World Leaders” report: “The image of U.S. leadership abroad is not good right now.”
In reality, the U.S. had a 48 percent global approval rating in President Obama’s last year in office and that rating plunged to 30 percent in Trump’s first year in office. It now sits at 31 percent median approval across the 133 countries surveyed by Gallup.
One of the most dangerous takeaways from the new Gallup report is that our closest allies think so little of the U.S. right now. The report notes that “Regionally, the image of U.S. leadership fared worst in Europe, where approval remained low and stable, dropping one percentage point from the previous year to 24%.” The current 24 percent approval rating compares to a 44 percent approval rating in Europe in Obama’s last year in office.
The 24 percent overall approval rating in Europe disguises the deep distrust of the U.S. by some European countries where approval of the U.S. is far lower: Norway 12 percent; Sweden 13 percent; Austria and Portugal 14 percent; Belgium and Switzerland 16 percent; and Germany 17 percent.
…
