One year ago this week, Donald Trump spoke 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 the “awakening of our military” before focusing on his main concern.
“Basically, respect around the world,” Trump said. “We don’t have it anymore. Three years ago we had a lot of respect. We have no respect anymore. … We have to get that respect back. And if we don’t do that, we’re going to have some big problems.”
This has been a rhetorical staple for the presumptive Republican nominee for some time now. In fact, back in April, Trump told an audience in Pennsylvania, referring to his tenure in the White House: “We were the most respected country in the world. We were the most respected we’d ever been respected. We have never been as respected as we were four years ago.”
These claims in no way reflected reality, as we were reminded again last week in the Pew Research Center’s latest findings.
There’s quite a bit of data to review in the report, which measured public opinion in 34 countries across several continents, but there were a few key takeaways. Firstly, more and more people internationally have confidence in it Biden to do the right thing regarding world affairs, compared to Trump.
And second, while trust in the White House fell sharply, those numbers have rebounded under Biden during Trump’s presidency.
Not surprisingly, there is a lot of variation across specific countries and regions, and it is true that support for the Democratic incumbent president abroad has declined as his presidency has progressed. But the data is nevertheless clear that Biden enjoys the kind of international respect that Trump talked about but never achieved.
All this is consistent with other data from recent years. Looking back at our previous reporting, a 2021 Gallup report found that approval ratings of U.S. leadership around the world had “largely recovered from the record low ratings seen during the Trump administration.” Around the same time, the Pew Research Center released a related report documenting “dramatic” improvements in the United States’ international standing after Biden replaced Trump in the Oval Office.
A year later, Gallup released another report on the United States’ standing among NATO members, concluding that US leadership in the Biden era was “stronger in much of NATO than it had been in years , after languishing at low levels during the Trump administration. ”
In other words, the latest data from the Pew Research Center is consistent with the recent trend.
All this makes it a curious concern for Trump. For example, at a 2020 campaign event, the then-incumbent president boasted, “You know, we’re respected again. Maybe you don’t feel it, even though I think you do. Maybe you don’t see it. You don’t read anything about it from the fake news, but this country is respected again.”
As regular readers know, this has long been fundamental to the Republicans’ worldview: the United States was an international laughing stock for decades, Trump has long argued, but thanks to how awesome its greatness is, it has single-handedly won the global status of the country restored. It was a ridiculous idea that he constantly brought up because he considered it one of his most important achievements.
Even in his strange farewell speech, delivered on his last full day in the White House, Trump felt it necessary to tell Americans for the last time: “The world respects us again.” The Republican added, in a clear message to 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 surveys showed that our global standing was collapsing. A September 2020 Pew Research Center analysis noted: “Across several countries, the share of the public with a positive view of the U.S. is as low as at any time since the Center began polling on the topic nearly two decades ago. ”
If the Republican truly believes 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 position has recovered considerably compared to four years ago; the bad news is that it is Biden who helped deliver the encouraging results.
This message updates our related previous reporting.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
