International Confidence in American Leadership Has Plummeted

When President Trump spoke in front of the UN General Assembly late last month, he could barely get through a paragraph before the congregation of world leaders started mocking at him. “In less than two years my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country,” Trump said to laughs. It was an embarrassing rebuke of a president who has bragged about how much America is respected now that he is in charge. Trump would claim at a press conference the next day that the world leaders were actually laughing with him, not at him. Yes, he literally said this. “People had a good time with me,” he went on. “We were doing it together. We had a good time. They respect what I’ve done. The United States is respected again.”

But it didn’t take the UN laughing at the president’s absurd claims to realize that the United States has become the butt of the jokes, or that the international community’s confidence in America’s ability to lead has plummeted since he took office. Trump has started a global trade war, recklessly pulled America out of multilateral agreements, praised dictators and made a routine out of denigrating the nation’s closest allies. Claiming that America is respected again may be one of his most outrageous delusions, which, of course, is really saying something.

If any more proof was required, the nonpartisan Pew Research Global data firm released a report earlier this month detailing America’s global image under Trump. As expected, it’s not so hot, at least according to the 25 countries surveyed.

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