What 36 Countries Just Told Pew About America’s Shrinking Word
There are cold shoulders and then there are cold shoulders. Four years ago, according to the Pew Research Center, 83% of Canadians called the United States a reliable partner. Today that figure sits at 35%. Our closest neighbor, the country we share the longest open border with, the place that buys more of our goods than almost anyone on earth, has quietly stopped counting on us.
That collapse is not a fluke. It is the centerpiece of a sweeping new Pew survey of 42,151 adults across 36 countries, conducted between February and May of this year. The picture it paints is bleak. Across those nations, according to Pew, a median of just 23% of people say they have confidence in President Trump to do the right thing in world affairs. A median of 57% now hold an unfavorable view of the United States itself, while only 37% see us positively.
We have been here before, in a sense. America’s standing abroad sank during the Iraq War years too. What feels different now is the breadth of the retreat and who is doing the retreating. These are not rivals souring on us. They are friends. In Germany, the share of people who believe we weigh other countries’ interests when we set foreign policy has fallen from 60% three years ago to 23% today, according to Pew. In Japan, reliability ratings slid from 76% to 59%. Tariff anger runs hot even among allies, with only 17% of Canadians and 8% of Germans approving of how the president handles trade.
Why should any of this land at our kitchen tables? Because reputation is not a vanity metric. It is leverage. When allies trust us, they buy our debt, host our troops, share their intelligence, and stand with us when we need them most. When that trust thins, every negotiation gets harder and every favor gets pricier. The war we launched alongside Israel against Iran in February clearly sharpened the global mood. A median of 74% of people across those 36 countries disapprove of how the president handled it, according to Pew, and researchers could measure attitudes curdling in real time as the survey ran.
The story is not uniform, and honesty requires saying so. In Hungary, where a Trump ally governed until this spring, the share calling us reliable actually rose from 59% to 65%. Trump still draws warm reviews in Israel, the Philippines and parts of Africa. Strongmen and the voters who admire them tend to like what they see. But that is precisely the company we now keep, and it is fair to ask whether that is the room we want to be standing in.
Here is the part we cannot blame on foreigners. Pew found that a median of 56% of people abroad say our government no longer respects the personal freedoms of its own people. That is a verdict on us, handed down by neighbors watching from a distance. And the doubts are not only theirs. At home, according to Pew, 62% of us disapprove of the decision to strike Iran, and 59% say it was the wrong call.
None of this is carved in stone. Reputations recover. Allies forgive. But they do so when they see a genuine course correction, not a louder version of the same. The midterms this November are the first real chance we have to say out loud what the rest of the world is already shouting. The neighbors have noticed. The only question left is whether we have. Go beyond the headlines…
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