Who is more distrusted by the world? The president who allegedly meddled in the U.S. 2016 election or the president who benefited from the Russian meddling? A Pew Research Center study found people from 37 countries surveyed distrusted U.S. President Donald trump than Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The poll, which had about 40,000 respondents, discovered 74 percent lack confidence in the real estate billionaire. Another 59 percent distrust the former KGB spy, The Washington Post reported. The distrust level for Chinese President Xi Jinping was lower at 53 percent, while only 31 percent distrusted German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Why do people dislike Trump?
The Pew report confirmed what media has been reported the past five months since Trump became the 45th president of the U.S. He has caused the image of the U.S. to suffer terribly. Trump brought down the rating of the country to 49 percent from the 64 percent in January when his predecessor, Barack Obama, ended his eight-year term.
The perception of Trump in North America and Western Europe is he rewrote U.S. foreign policy on a lot of significant issues for the worse and is friendly with strongmen like Putin. About nine out of 10 citizens of Canada, Spain, Sweden, Germany, Australia, Mexico, France, The Netherlands, and Britain view Trump as arrogant. Another seven out of 10 see the former “The Apprentice” host as dangerous.
Except for Africa, Israel, and Russia, there is a universal negative view of Trump. In the case of Putin, he has at least a relatively higher confidence rating in four countries. His confidence rating was 79 in Vietnam, 54 in the Philippines, 50 in Greece, and 46 in Lebanon. Expectedly, Putin got a high 87 confidence rating in Russia.
Building walls, instead of bridges
One of the most unpopular policies of Trump is his plan to build a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico to curb illegal migration. While it is not surprising for nine out of 10 Mexicans to oppose the planned fence, it turns out in other parts of the world more than seven out of 10 people also thumb down the idea of a border wall, Mashable reported.
The report, however, noted Trump has a high approval rating in Russia whose agents allegedly helped him win the 2016 election. It would explain why among the 37 nations polled, Russians who gave Trump an arrogant rating was 44, intolerant rating 26, and dangerous rating 31. In contrast, 93 percent of Canadians found Trump arrogant, 78 percent intolerant, and 72 percent dangerous.
