This Is the Country With the Lowest Opinion of the United States

As an economic and military super-power without equal, the United States has an outsized role in geopolitics. American foreign policy, perhaps more so than that of any other country, can have a meaningful impact on the lives of people the world over. Still, despite the global implications of American influence, policy in the United States […] The post This Is the Country With the Lowest Opinion of the United States appeared first on 24/7 Wall St..

Apr 29, 2025 - 15:06

This Is the Country With the Lowest Opinion of the United States

As an economic and military super-power without equal, the United States has an outsized role in geopolitics. American foreign policy, perhaps more so than that of any other country, can have a meaningful impact on the lives of people the world over. Still, despite the global implications of American influence, policy in the United States is decided exclusively by American voters and the leaders they elect — ostensibly, irrespective of foreign interests.

24/7 Wall St. Key Points:

In the early months of his second term, President Donald Trump — through both policy and rhetoric — has fundamentally altered the geopolitical status quo.
While President Trump’s approach to foreign policy will, in the administration’s view, benefit the American people, it has also done meaningful damage to America’s reputation — particularly for certain countries that depend on the U.S. as a trading partner and military ally.
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But, while citizens of foreign countries have no direct leverage over U.S. policy, most still have opinions, and those opinions are not necessarily trivial when it comes to American interests. Democratic countries where people are more likely to have positive perceptions of the U.S., for example, are more likely to elect leaders who share their views, and therefore cultivate a mutually beneficial relationship with the United States. Conversely, in countries where public opinion of the U.S. is largely negative, leaders may conceivably be more likely to reflect that consensus and adopt an adversarial posture toward the United States.

It should come as little surprise that for many of America’s closest allies — including Canada, France, and the United Kingdom — perceptions of the U.S. have historically been overly favorable. Meanwhile, in some of America’s largest geopolitical rivals, such as China and Russia, most people hold unfavorable views of the United States. In recent months, however, these long standing trends appear to be changing.

Since taking office in January 2025, President Donald Trump has substantially altered America’s standing in the world. Upending decades of established precedent in some cases, Trump has cast doubt on America’s continued commitment to the NATO alliance, imposed sweeping tariffs on American trading partners, and backed away from international climate change initiatives. While components of these policies are popular with large swaths of American voters, they also appear to have diminished America’s reputation in many countries around the world. (Here is a look at the Trump administration’s most, and least, popular policies so far.)

Using data from Morning Consult, 24/7 Wall St. identified the countries with the lowest opinions of the United States. Countries are ranked on their net-favorability rating of the United States — or the share of a country’s population with positive views of America, less those with overly negative views. Survey results are current as of March 2025, the most recent month of available data. Only countries where the U.S. has a negative net-favorability rating are included in this analysis.

Of the 42 countries included in the Morning Consult survey, 23 have an unfavorable view of the United States. Of these 23 countries, America’s net-favorability rating ranges from -2.0% to -51.2%. While the countries on this list include places like China and Russia, the countries that are now most critical of the United States include many historical allies.

In Belgium, which, like the United States, was a founding member of the NATO alliance, the U.S. now has a -32.3% net-favorability rating, by far the lowest ever recorded in the country over the survey’s 39 month history. Similarly, in France, another founding NATO member, America’s net-favorability rating went negative for the first time in the history of the survey in February 2025, and plummeted even further in March 2025 to -26.4%. In Canada, one of America’s largest trading partners and a country specifically targeted by Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, net-favorability of the U.S. also stands at an all-time low of -47.0%.

Notably, in these and many other countries with strong military and economic ties to the United States, consensus views of the U.S. are more negative than they are in places like China and Russia, where U.S. net-favorability stands at -22.4% and -13.7%, respectively. (Here is a look at the biggest geopolitical conflicts Trump will have to reckon with.)

These are the countries with the lowest opinions of the United States.

Why It Matters

The transition of power from the Joe Biden White House to the second Trump administration will likely stand out as a turning point in American history and in America’s role in the world. Within his first few months in office, President Trump has subverted long-established geopolitical norms and upended the status quo in U.S. foreign policy. Whether or not these the Trump administration’s methods will ultimately benefit the United States remains to be seen. But what is already clear, America’s reputation with many of its closest allies is suffering — and the damage done may have long lasting implications.