If someone likes to follow world politics, one can hear some form of scandalous news from the US about Donald Trump’s presidency every day. Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance arescolding Ukrainian President Zelensky at the White House at one moment, pulling the US out of the WHO and the Paris Climate Agreementat the next,or his administration firing a ministry employeewho does not support the return of Mel Gibson’s firearm. Meanwhile,Elon Musk is dismantling and mutilating critical institutions of the US state administration one after the other, when he is not insulting someone, for example, the EU on his social platform,X.
It is no wonder, then, that Europeans’ enthusiasm for the United States seems to be wavering these days. European voters in general, even before Trump, had a relatively good opinion of the United States and considered it an important partner. For example, in thisPew Research survey at the end of 2024, 74% of Germans said that their country’s relationship with the US is good. The situation is not so rosy these days. A research project at Central European University asked Germans a few days before the German elections in February how they view the U.S. government. The 3200 respondents had to answer a so-called thermometer question, where they mark on a scale of 100 how positive (100) or negative (0) their opinion is about a given political actor is. The US did not perform very well. While the international political institutions (UN, EU, WHO) received an average rating of 56, 57 and 58 points, and the French government also received 52, the US government received only 42, barely one percent ahead of the most unpopular member of the list, the Hungarian government (41), and even the leadership of Slovakia, which is not very democratic these days, is ahead of the US (46).
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Source: Own analysis, the survey was conducted as part of a research project at Central European University
So the US is currently in the same category in the eyes of German voters as Europe’s more authoritarian governments, including Hungary. What is even more problematic is that nearly 60% of all respondents gave a negative rating to the US government below 50, while a third of respondents gave a very negative rating to the US government below 25, and only 15% rated it above 75 points, very positively. If we look at the breakdown by party, voters of most German parties rated the US administration similarly on average, between 35 and 45 points. The exceptions are Green Party voters, who rated the US government below 30, and the far-right AfD, who rated it at 53 points on average. The Trump administration, therefore, seems to have joined the ranks of administrations that are only liked by extremists.
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Source: Own analysis, the survey was conducted as part of a research project at Central European University
It’s not just Germans who are skeptical about the U.S. these days. YouGov conducted asurvey in several European countries back in November 2024, after Donald Trump’s re-election. In addition to the United Kingdom, citizens of France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Spain and Italy were asked whether they had a good or bad opinion of the United States. According to the survey, after Trump’s election, the perception of the United States fell at a record pace. Trump did not do any good to the popularity of the United States during his first presidency between 2017 and 2021. Since YouGov regularly asks European people about the United States, it is easy to trace from their data how the United States was perceived at any given time.
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Source: Yougov
During Trump’s first presidency, the popularity of the United States fell gradually and slowly. During the Biden administration, the positive perception of the US in Europe seemed to return, until the 2024 campaign period. What is a powerful change, however, is that after Trump’s re-election, the perception of the US in Europe seems to fall extremely quickly and drastically. In addition, the measurement only shows the impact of Trump’s election, the president was only inaugurated later, in February 2025, so we cannot yet see how much the popularity of the United States has plummeted as a result of Trump’s reforms.
If the German survey can be generalized, which is likely given the similarity of international trends, Trump has not convinced Europeans since he came to power. The situation is not expected to improve in the near future. Trump’s tariff war has also reached the EU, with the US imposing a 25% tariff on steel and aluminum products. The EU is nowconsidering a responseto this, and they would impose tariffs on several iconic American products. Europeans will likely also feel the impact of the tariff war on their own pockets, as similar tariffs are usually passed on to consumers by companies. The only question is to what extent Europeans will blame the US for the economic problems and to what extent they will blame their own government or the EU. At the moment, it seems that the Trump administration is digging its own grave in terms of international perception, and Europeans say no thank you to his “America first” policy.
Original source: https://hvg.hu/360/20250327_trump-amerikaja-kozvelemeny-kutatas