Trump's slide on the international stage

Donald Trump has been criticised by politicians from both sides at home while the standing of US leadership has suffered overseas. Photo / AP

With the US President marking a year in office tomorrow, Jena Mcgregor looks at how the world's citizens rate his performance.

President Donald Trump is facing his first annual performance review, and while support from many who voted for him is still strong, the President is facing harsh reviews from many other corners.

According to recent polls, US voter confidence in his temperament, leadership strength and ability to unite Americans have fallen, at times sharply, since a year ago.

Leaders of his own party have said they're unclear where their standard bearer stands on key policy issues. Republican senators John McCain and Jeff Flake both excoriated Trump this week for discrediting the free press and being unwilling to accept criticism, adding to the broad scrutiny of Trump's persistent struggles with the truth.

And politicians and others on both sides of the aisle had sharp rebukes for the vulgar remark Trump reportedly used last week in an Oval Office meeting disparaging other countries.

But one year in, another disapproving party is the world's citizens at large.

Yesterday, Gallup released findings of surveys of residents of other countries. The world's approval of US leadership in 2017 dropped 18 percentage points from 2016, the last year of President Barack Obama's Administration, and was four points lower than in 2008, the final year of President George W. Bush's Administration, which had been the previous nadir.

Median approval of US leadership across the 134 countries surveyed during Trump's first year in office fell to 30 per cent, the lowest figure recorded in the 11 years Gallup has asked the question. Disapproval of US leadership rose to a median of 43 per cent, up 15 percentage points from 2016, which was also a record, according to Gallup. The new figures mark the first time since 2007 that more global residents disapproved of US leadership than approved of it (the figures were equivalent in 2008, each at 34 per cent).

The survey, which interviewed at least 1000 adults in each of 134 countries by telephone or face-to-face between March and November last year, finds that global citizens put their view of US leadership on par with that of China, whose leadership gets a 31 per cent approval rate. The biggest regional drop came in the Americas, where the image of US leadership sank from a 49 per cent approval rate in 2016 to 24 per cent last year. It dropped 40 percentage points in Canada and 28 points among Mexicans, who have been a frequent target of Trump's insults and on whose border Trump is trying to erect a wall.

Gallup says in its report that 2017 was not without successes for the US and its allies, noting the beating back of Isis (Islamic State) in Iraq and Syria. But it also said: "The sharp drops in approval of US leadership in every part of the world are evidence that the other aspects of Trump's foreign policy - and his own words - have sowed doubt about the US commitment to its partners abroad and called its reliability into question."

Some of those words - like the vulgar remarks Trump is reported to have said last week about countries such as Haiti and those in Africa, while suggesting the US should bring in more immigrants from countries like Norway - would not have been reflected yet in the survey results.

Indeed, those surveyed in Haiti gave US leadership a 29 per cent approval rating (18 percentage points lower than the previous year) while just 13 per cent of Norwegians said they approved of US leadership, down 42 points from 2016. African countries, as a whole, actually hold US leadership in higher regard than any other region, with a 51 per cent approval rating, down just two percentage points from 2016.

The survey is, of course, not the first to find America's standing in the world slipping around the world under Trump's leadership. A Pew Research Centre survey published in June, for instance, found that just 22 per cent of people in 37 countries had confidence in the US President, down from 64 per cent the year before.

Trump, who campaigned on the promise of "America First", abandoned the Trans-Pacific Partnership and withdrew from the Paris climate accord, may not care too much about what citizens of other countries think of US leadership during his presidency.

But as the Gallup report notes, research has shown that public opinion in foreign countries affects their policies toward the United States. Less tangible than policy changes, but just as critical, will be how Trump's rhetoric, words and actions shape not only how citizens at home and in the broader world view American ideals such as a free press and fair elections, but the moral leadership that Americans - and the rest of the globe - have long expected of the US President.