American satisfaction with US position in world nears 2-decade high
But most Americans agree that President Trump is not viewed positively by other world leaders
Americans are more satisfied with the status of the U.S. in the world today than they have been since 2003, a jump largely owed to Republicans, according to a new Gallup poll.
About 53 percent of Americans are satisfied with the global position of the U.S., the poll, released Thursday found.
But the assessment of the country’s position in the world is starkly different between the political parties: Republicans expressed a high level -- 85 percent -- of satisfaction, while just 19 percent of Democrats said they were satisfied. Independents’ satisfaction edged up slightly to 48 percent.
While Democrats and Republicans typically disagree in their evaluation of the country, depending on whether their party occupies the White House, the current 66-percentage-point gap between their satisfaction levels is the largest ever recorded by Gallup.
UNDER TRUMP, AMERICANS' ECONOMIC OPTIMISM HITS HIGHEST LEVEL SINCE 1999
Gallup has tracked Americans’ satisfaction with the country’s standing since 2000; it peaked at 71 percent in 2002 shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks and plummeted to 30 percent in 2008 at the end of President George W. Bush’s eight-year tenure when the U.S. remained mired in conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Still, most Americans agree that President Trump is not viewed positively by other world leaders. Just 37 percent think that leaders of other countries respect Trump, compared to 61 percent who say they do not. That’s up six percentage points from 2019, a record for Trump, but is far from the highs recorded for his two most recent predecessors (Bush received 75 percent in 2002, and Barack Obama garnered 67 percent in 2009).
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Seventy-one percent of Republicans think Trump is respected, while just 6 percent of Democrats believe the same. The 68-point gap between Republicans and Democrats on this measure is not uncommon, though it is at the higher end.
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“As Trump fights to stay in the White House and remain the leader of the free world, Americans are feeling more positive about the United States' global image than they have since 2003,” the poll concluded. “The readings about global perceptions of the U.S. among all Americans are roughly in line with those in 2004 when Bush won a second term in office.”
The poll, which was conducted from Feb. 3 to Feb. 16, surveyed 1,208 adults.