With Trump out of office, global confidence in America has almost doubled

Some foreign policy experts worried that trust in America abroad might not survive the Trump years. But new survey results from Pew Research released Thursday tell a far more hopeful story.

Pew asked respondents in 16 developed countries for their opinion of America under Biden and found that 62% now have a favorable view of the U.S. That’s way up from the 34% favorable view earned by Trump in last year’s survey.

In 12 of the countries, Pew had asked the same questions a year ago when Trump was president. The difference in the responses was sizable. Seventy-five percent of respondents had confidence that Biden would “do the right thing regarding world affairs.” Last year’s survey found that only 17% thought Trump would do the right thing.

The opinion swing on the U.S. president was more pronounced in some countries than others.

Just 10% of Germans trusted Trump to do the right thing in last year’s survey; that number went up to 78% with Biden.
Sweden’s confidence level went from 15% for Trump to 85% for Biden.
Belgium’s confidence level went from 9% for Trump to 79% for Biden.
In Greece, confidence in the U.S. president was 25% in 2019, and rose to 67% with the arrival of Biden.

In all the countries surveyed by this year and last year, the confidence score increased at least 40%, Pew found.