Exactly one year ago this week, Donald Trump sat down with Fox News’ Bret Baier, and the host asked the former president what he considers “the most important issue” facing the country. The Republican talked about the economy, border security, and getting “the woke out of our military,” before focusing on his principal point of concern.
“Basically, respect all over the world,” Trump said. “We don’t have it anymore. We had tremendous respect three years ago. We don’t have respect anymore. … We have to get that respect back. And if we don’t, we’ve got some big problems.”
This has been a rhetorical staple for the presumptive GOP nominee for quite a while. In fact, as recently as April, Trump told a Pennsylvania audience, referring to his White House tenure, “We were the most respected country in the world. We were the most respected that we were ever respected. We were never more respected than we were four years ago.”
Those claims didn’t reflect reality in any way, as we were reminded anew last week in the latest findings from the Pew Research Center.
With many around the world closely following the fiercely contested rematch between U.S. President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, a new Pew Research Center survey finds that, internationally, Biden is viewed more positively than his rival.
There’s quite a bit of data to review in the report, which gauged public attitudes in 34 countries, across several continents, but there were a couple of key takeaways. First, internationally, more people have confidence in Biden to do the right thing regarding world affairs, as compared to Trump.
And second, while confidence in the White House slumped badly, during Trump’s presidency, those numbers have rebounded under Biden.
Not surprisingly, there’s a great deal of variety across specific countries and regions, and it’s true that support for the Democratic incumbent abroad has slipped as his presidency has progressed. But it’s nevertheless obvious in the data that Biden enjoys the kind of international respect Trump talked about but never achieved.
All of this is consistent with other data from the last few years. Revisiting our earlier coverage, a Gallup report in 2021 found that approval ratings of U.S. leadership around the world had “largely rebounded from the record-low ratings observed during the Trump administration.” Around the same time, the Pew Research Center released a related report documenting “dramatic” improvements in the United States’ international stature once Biden replaced Trump in the Oval Office.
A year later, Gallup released another report on the United States’ standing among NATO members, concluding that U.S. leadership in the Biden era “was stronger across much of NATO than it had been in years, after languishing at low levels during the Trump administration.”
The latest Pew Research Center data, in other words, is consistent with the recent trend.
All of which makes it a curious preoccupation for Trump. At a campaign event in 2020, for example, the then-incumbent boasted, “You know, we’re respected again. You may not feel it, although I think you do. You may not see it. You don’t read about it from the fake news, but this country is respected again.” As regular readers know, it has long been foundational to the Republican’s worldview: The United States was an international laughingstock for decades, Trump has long argued, but thanks to how awesome his awesomeness is, he singlehandedly restored the nation’s global stature. It was a ridiculous idea he brought up constantly, seeing it as one of his most important accomplishments. Even in his strange farewell address, delivered on his final full day in the White House, Trump found it necessary, one last time, to tell Americans, “The world respects us again.” The Republican added, in an apparent message for his Democratic successor, “Please don’t lose that respect.” None of this made any sense. After roughly 46% of American voters put Trump in the White House, international public opinion research showed that our global stature collapsed. A Pew Research Center analysis from September 2020 noted, “In several countries, the share of the public with a favorable view of the U.S. is as low as it has been at any point since the Center began polling on this topic nearly two decades ago.” If the Republican is genuinely convinced that international respect for the United States is “the most important issue” facing the country, I have good news and bad news for the former president. The good news is that the country’s standing has rebounded nicely as compared to four years ago; the bad news is that it’s Biden who’s helped deliver the encouraging results. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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