- Worldwide approval of the US has rebounded under President Biden.
- Gallup's annual world poll found that approval of the US shot up 15 percentage points.
- But Biden's honeymoon appears to have ended during the US' chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Worldwide views of the US vastly improved during President Joe Biden first year in office, a sign of just how much the globe had soured on former President Donald Trump, new polling revealed.
Median approval of US leadership shot up 15 percentage points, according to the latest edition of Gallup's world poll. The bump takes America roughly back to the Obama-era norm of approval in the 45% range compared to 30% during Trump's final year in office. Biden even tied Obama's 49% record high by August 2021 before the US ratings slipped in the second half of the year amid the administration's chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, although Gallup cautions it can't specifically say the withdrawal caused the decline.
"I anticipated a change, but I didn't anticipate the change would be to this scale," Julie Ray, managing Editor for World News at Gallup said in an interview.
Biden ran on a message of ending Trump's "America First" policies, returning America to international agreements like the Paris Climate Accord and taking a less confrontational stance towards alliances and international bodies like NATO.
This vast change in world views is nothing new, Ray said. President Barack Obama experienced a similar bump after he replaced President George W. Bush after most of the world grew fed up with the Iraq War and the Bush administration's foreign policy.
The polling is a bit of good news for a White House that is facing a much more hostile reception back home. Biden's domestic approval ratings tanked after his Afghanistan withdrawal and as the Omicron variant renewed COVID-19 worries. Unlike his predecessors, Biden is also not experiencing a "rally round' the flag" bump as he helps guide the West amid Russia's war in Ukraine.
Some of the biggest pro-America swings were in Europe. The nation's overall approval rating for US leadership are in parentheses. Views of the US jumped 52 percentage-points in Portugal (64%), 45 points in the Netherlands (63%), and 42 points in Norway (54%).
Traditional US allies that Trump repeatedly tangled with also expressed rosier views. Germany, where Trump clashed with Chancellor Angela Merkel, gave Biden's America a 36-point boost (42%). Global views are still more favorable of Germany compared to the US, the Germans have a median world approval of 50%.
Canada, which Trump labeled a US "security threat" when he imposed tariffs on its steel and aluminum imports, gave Biden a 38-point bump (55%). US approval also went up 26 points in Mexico (52%), which Trump made a prime target of criticism over immigration.
Before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, views of the US soared among NATO members. In 20 out of the 27 NATO nations, the US experienced a double-digit bump in approval. Lithuania was the only NATO member where views of the US declined, down 6 percentage points.
Gallup surveyed 116 countries and territories for its world poll, which it began tracking in 2007. The polling is so massive that it had to been conducted throughout 2021 with some final surveys ending in January 2022. The firm used phone and in-person interviews with nationally representative samples among people 15-years-old or older. For results based on a nation's total sample, the margin of error ranges from plus or minus 2.8 to 5 percentage points.
Some changes in approval could also be due to surveying methods, Gallup said. The polling firm suggested this is why views of the US fell double digits in Nepal and Zambia after Gallup switched from telephone interviews in 2020 to in-person interviews in 2021.