At Donald Trump’s marathon White House Cabinet meeting this week, the president boasted at the outset: “We’re respected all over the world — like never before, probably.” A few days earlier, pointing to evidence that only exists in his imagination, he added: “Our nation now is the most respected nation anywhere in the world, by far.”
That might’ve once been true, but it’s certainly not the case now. On the contrary, it has become increasingly common to see Trump face growing ridicule on the international stage. Politico reported:
Pressure is mounting on Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree to bilateral talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, with French President Emmanuel Macron weighing in on Friday. ‘If that doesn’t happen by Monday, the deadline set by President Trump, it means that once again President Putin played President Trump,’ Macron said at a joint news conference with the German chancellor.
The key words in that quote were devastating: “once again.” In other words, as far as the French president is concerned, Putin has already repeatedly played Trump, and it appears the Russian dictator is poised to do so again.
Macron’s comments come the same week as Portugal’s president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, said in reference to Trump: “The supreme leader of the world’s greatest superpower is, objectively, a Soviet, or Russian, asset. He functions as an asset.” (Note, in Portugal’s system, de Sousa is not the head of state, though his comments caused a stir anyway.)
This came on the heels of a related Politico report, published earlier this week, about the growing number of international diplomats who question Trump’s commitment to the rule of law.
A few days later, Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, told Politico that Putin “is just laughing” as the White House meanders from one failure to the next.
What was that Trump was saying about the “respect” he’d restored?
What’s more, the problem isn’t limited to foreign officials. In June, the Pew Research Center released the results of international surveys measuring Trump’s support in 24 nations across the globe. As the Pew report made clear, the results were awful:
Majorities in most countries also express little or no confidence in Trump’s ability to handle specific issues, including immigration, the Russia-Ukraine war, U.S.-China relations, global economic problems, conflicts between Israel and its neighbors, and climate change. When asked about Trump’s personal characteristics, most describe him as arrogant and dangerous, while relatively few see him as honest.
Broadly speaking, good news for the White House was hard to find in the data. Not only does much of the world hold Trump in low regard, but his unpopularity is tarnishing the stature of the United States, too, with favorable ratings of the U.S. dropping by double digits in several countries.
Making matters slightly worse, there’s the recent pattern to consider. While there are predictable differences across countries and regions, broadly speaking, the Pew Research Center’s data showed George W. Bush unpopular abroad, while Barack Obama’s support soared. After the Democrat left the White House, Trump’s numbers in his first term were awful, and the data bounced back under Joe Biden.
Now that the Republican is back in the Oval Office, the numbers have slid down — again. There might very well be some who’ll suggest results like these are irrelevant. After all, Trump has prioritized an “America First” attitude, so perhaps his followers will argue that his lack of international backing shouldn’t matter. The problem with this defense is that Trump has invested an enormous amount of time and energy making the opposite argument. Indeed, as recently as the last seven days, he continued to claim, more than once, that thanks to his awesomeness, “our nation now is the most respected nation anywhere in the world, by far.” It’d be great if that were true. As a result of his failures, weakness and humiliations, it’s not. 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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