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Fox News’ Bret Baier began his interview with Donald Trump this week with the same first question the host asks every 2024 presidential candidate: “What do you think is the most important issue facing the country right now?”
The Republican talked about the economy, border security and what he described as getting “the woke out of our military,” whatever that meant. But the former president eventually turned his attention on a broader point of concern.
“Basically, respect all over the world. We don’t have it anymore. We had tremendous respect three years ago. We don’t have respect anymore. They don’t listen to us. They don’t care about us. They just don’t do what we want them to do and what they have to do, especially since we make life very good for many countries. And we have to get that respect back. And if we don’t, we’ve got some big problems.”
Though it doesn’t generally receive a lot of attention, this has long been one of Trump’s curious preoccupations. At a campaign event in 2020, for example, the then-incumbent turned his attention to one of his very favorite falsehoods: “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 boast to Americans, “The world respects us again.” In an apparent message for his Democratic successor, the Republican added: “Please don’t lose that respect.”
None of this made any sense. After roughly 46% of American voters put Trump in the White House, the nation’s international stature collapsed. Remember this Washington Post report from 2020?
New data from Pew Research Center shows that many of the countries that have traditionally been the United States’ closest allies are now far less likely to view the country with approval. In 11 countries for which there are more than five years of data, the percentage of people viewing the United States with approval is at a recorded low in nine. The median percentage expressing favorable views of the United States across each of the countries surveyed is also at a record low, with about a third of respondents holding a favorable view.
Even before 2020, international surveys on our international standing pointed in a discouraging direction. In many countries, including longtime U.S. allies, global support for the White House was high during Barack Obama’s terms, but then collapsed after the Democrat was replaced by Trump.
The 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.”
Pew added, “Attitudes toward Trump have consistently been much more negative than those toward his predecessor. ... The publics surveyed also see Trump more negatively than other world leaders.”
The good news is, after President Joe Biden took office, the United States’ standing sharply improved. 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.”
And yet, there was Trump on Fox News this week, insisting that we no longer have “respect all over the world.”
If this is one of the most important issues facing the country right now, the former president is effectively telling voters not to support him.
This post revises our related earlier coverage.