The Rest Of The World Doesn't Like Trump Either

We in America are so busy hating/loving/fearing presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump that it’s easy to forget sometimes that much of the rest of the world has opinions on him too. Fortunately, other nations seem more decisive and single-minded in their views of Trump. A refreshing and slightly amusing Pew Research Center poll published Wednesday showed that the global community has little to no confidence in Trump's foreign policy. According to the poll, Trump has only single-digit favorables regarding foreign policy in seven of 15 nations surveyed. The country where people feel the best about Trump? China.

Despite all the joke potential, it’s important to contextualize that result straight off. 40 percent of those polled in China listed no confidence in Trump’s foreign policy capabilities, and 39 percent had no opinion. It's not like Trump is beloved in China — far from it. It's just that Trump performed so abysmally in every other country included in the poll that even numbers like that were enough to boost China to the top of the list. In Sweden, for instance, 92 percent of those polled said they had little or no confidence in his ability to effectively handle international affairs.

Hillary Clinton did much, much better overall, though China apparently remains unsold on any particular nominee. Only 37 percent polled said they had confidence in her foreign policy abilities. Overall, Europeans were 57 percent confident in her abilities — which can be contrasted to Trump’s nine percent without much explanation.

Per the Pew poll:

European attitudes toward President Barack Obama remain very positive. Across the 10 EU nations polled, a median of 77 percent have confidence in Obama to do the right thing in world affairs ... Europeans are somewhat less enthusiastic about Hillary Clinton, although her ratings are still mostly positive: A median of 59 percent have confidence in her. In contrast, ratings for Donald Trump are overwhelmingly negative. A median of just 9 percent trust the wealthy real estate developer to do the right thing in world affairs; 85 percent lack confidence in him.

The data was gathered in April and May, meaning this came even before the struggles that have marked Trump’s early summer. The poll surveyed 20,132 people across Europe and Asia, and it's problematic for Trump for more than pure popularity reasons. Trump likes to talk about how he’ll make all the best deals with all the best people, but it’s hard to get people to work with you if they all hate you. Or, more accurately, if they merely believe you to be uninformed and incompetent on foreign affairs. It remains to be seen whether Trump will acknowledge the poll, even just to dismiss it as biased or dishonest or conducted by loser people.

Image: Bustle/Dawn Foster