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Containing the Trump Threat in Europe

During his upcoming visit to Poland, US President Donald Trump will likely stoke populist sentiments and encourage the government's illiberalism. It is now up to Europe’s leaders and the more responsible members of Trump’s administration to prevent him from harming the EU – and an alliance upon which global stability rests.

BRUSSELS – US President Donald Trump is clearly no leader of the free world. According to a new Pew Research Center study, he is deeply unpopular in most countries, and has already done serious damage to the United States’ reputation.

Pew finds that three quarters of the world has little or no confidence in Trump, whose favorability in most countries is now below that of George W. Bush when he left office. By that time, Bush had invaded Iraq and presided over the beginning of the 2008 global financial crisis. Even in neighboring Canada, just 22% of those surveyed expressed confidence in Trump.

Sentiment toward Trump is even more unfavorable in Western Europe. In Germany, only 6% of respondents think he is qualified to hold his current office, and 91% regard him as arrogant. Similarly, 89% of respondents in the United Kingdom think Trump is arrogant, and only 50% still believe that the US and the UK have a special relationship now that he is in office. This may help to explain why Trump’s scheduled state visit to the UK has been postponed indefinitely.

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