- Citizens of NATO countries have much more positive views of Joe Biden than Donald Trump.
- That's one of the key findings from the latest Gallup global polling on views of the US.
- 20 out of the 27 NATO nations gave America a double-digit bump in post-Trump approval ratings.
Citizens of NATO member countries have much more positive views of America now that President Joe Biden is in charge, according to a raft of global surveys released Tuesday morning.
Gallup's world leadership survey, which was conducted before the start of Russia's war in Ukraine, illustrates just how much Europe and other countries soured on the US as Trump labeled the Western alliance "obsolete," slapped US allies with tariffs, and furthered Russian President Vladimir Putin's goal of destabilizing global democracy.
According to Gallup's polling, 20 out of the 27 NATO nations gave America a double-digit bump in post-Trump approval ratings. The largest increase came from Portugal where views of the US shot up 52-percentage points (64% overall approving rating). Significant bumps also occurred in the Netherlands with 45-points (63%); Norway with 42-points; and Canada with 38-points (55%). Lithuania was the only NATO nation where views of the US dropped at all, down 6-points (22%).
The polling suggests that despite Biden's currently weak domestic approval, he is succeeding in his goal of restoring America's role as a global leader post-Trump, and was able to bring NATO together ahead of Russia's war in Ukraine.
As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump sparked controversy when he called NATO "obsolete." Trump continued to criticize NATO throughout his presidency and frequently made misleading claims about how it was funded, alienating key allies in the process. At times, Trump's fierce and unorthodox criticism of NATO raised fears that he would move to pull the US from the alliance altogether.
In recent months, particularly in relation to Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, Trump has sought to take credit for increases in defense spending by NATO members. "I hope everyone is able to remember that it was me, as President of the United States, that got delinquent NATO members to start paying their dues, which amounted to hundreds of billions of dollars," Trump said in a misleading statement in late February.
Despite Trump's claims, NATO members began raising defense spending before he was in office. "Since 2014, all Allies in Europe and Canada have increased defense spending every year. And they have, in total, added 270 billion extra for defense," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in February.
All NATO members contribute to a modest direct budget of $2.5 billion. Under Trump, the US contribution to this budget fell from 22% to 16%, with Germany agreeing to pay the same amount. But the NATO budget is separate from an agreement made by members to spend at least 2% of their GDP on defense by 2024. There's not a penalty for not reaching this level of spending — it's a guideline. Eight NATO members (20 in total) hit this goal in 2021.
Trump's verbal attacks on NATO undermined confidence in the alliance and divided members, aiding a key goal of Putin's. Meanwhile, Trump routinely praised Putin as a strong leader and often went out of his way to avoid criticizing the Russian leader.
Much of the world apparently doesn't share Trump's admiration for Putin, whom the former president recently lauded as "genius" and "savvy" over the Russian leader's justifications for invading Ukraine.
Views of Russia were already dismal before Putin launched a large-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24th. Just 33% of the world had a positive view of Moscow, which was improving from a recent low of 22% in 2014, following Russia's invasion of Crimea. Gallup expects views of Russia to sink back to that level or even lower as Western leaders seek to make Russia a "pariah state."
Russia's war has caused the worst refugee crisis in Europe since WWII, spread fears of global food shortages, sparked international investigations amid an ever-growing list of apparent war crimes, and led to Russia's ouster from global sporting bodies and parts of the financial system.
The dour views of Trump's final time in the White House fit with the global sentiment during George W. Bush's remaining days in office as the world soured on the Iraq War. Former Trump advisor Fiona Hill warned that if Trump returns to power, "it would mean the total loss of America's leadership position in the world arena."
Like President Barack Obama, Biden has experienced a bit of a honeymoon for US world standing. But Gallup found that this started to slip in August 2021, the same time when the US carried out a chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.
This is Gallup's first global leadership survey to be completed entirely since Biden took office. The firm began tracking global approval in 2007 and asks citizens around the globe about their views of US, Chinese, German, and Russian leadership.
Gallup surveyed 116 countries and territories for its findings for its world leadership series, which it began tracking in 2007. The firm used phone and in-person interviews with nationally representative, probability samples among people 15-years-old or older. For results based on a nation's total sample, the margin of error ranges from plus/minus 2.8 to 5 percentage points.