Survey: Majority of US citizens reject Trump's foreign policy

Telepolis Survey: Majority of US citizens reject Trump's foreign policy 20 hours • 3 minutes reading time Donald Trump's most important foreign policy initiatives are not well received by US citizens. However, the survey results reveal surprising details. A guest article. Some of President Donald Trump's most important foreign policy initiatives are met with rejection by most Americans, according to the results of a new survey by the Pew Research Center, released last Tuesday. Withdrawal from international agreements meets with rejection A majority of the more than 3,600 respondents who participated in the survey rejected Trump's proposals for Washington to take over Greenland and Gaza, while majorities also disapproved of his closure of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and his withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. A 52 percent majority of respondents also opposed Washington's withdrawal from the World Health Organization. 32 percent of respondents supported withdrawing from both the WHO and the Paris Agreement. Sentiment towards Ukraine and the Middle East A relative majority of 43 percent believed that Trump favored Russia "too much" in his efforts to end the war in Ukraine, while nearly a third of respondents (31 percent) believed he favored Israel "too much" in the conflict with the Palestinians. In the latter case, 29 percent said Trump struck "the right balance," while 3 percent said he favored the Palestinians. 37 percent were unsure. Opposition to tariff increases The survey, conducted between March 24 and 30, was conducted before the Trump administration imposed general tariffs on foreign imports and before the outbreak of a trade war between the United States and China, which appears to be intensifying. However, most respondents (52 percent) expected the tariffs on Chinese exports to have a negative impact on the US, while only 24 percent expected a positive impact. Partisan Differences There were, however, large partisan differences on this question: 44 percent of Republican or Republican-leaning respondents said the tariffs would have a positive impact, while 24 percent said they would have a negative impact. On the other hand, 80 percent of Democrat or Democratic-leaning respondents predicted that the tariffs on China would have a negative impact on the US economy, while only 5 percent said they would have a positive impact on the US. However, when asked how the tariffs on Chinese goods would affect them personally, more Republicans (30 percent) answered that the impact would be negative, while only 17 percent expected a positive impact. Overall, respondents were about five times more likely to believe that higher tariffs on Chinese goods would be detrimental to them than positive. The partisan divide was also evident in other survey questions. Large majorities of Republican or Republican-leaning respondents supported ending most USAID programs (64 percent), withdrawing from the Paris Agreement (60 percent), and withdrawing from the WHO (58 percent). The corresponding percentages for Democrats and Democratic-leaning respondents were 9 percent, 7 percent, and 8 percent, respectively. Similarly, 13 percent of Republican or Republican-leaning respondents believed the Trump administration favors the Israelis too much, while 50 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning respondents held this position. And while 28 percent of Republican or Republican-leaning respondents said they were either "strongly opposed" (16 percent) or "somewhat opposed" the U.S. taking over Greenland, Democrat or Democratic-leaning respondents were far more dismissive—70 percent strongly opposed and another 11 percent said they were "somewhat opposed." As for age differences, older respondents were generally more likely to support Trump's initial foreign policy actions than younger respondents. Jim Lobe is an editor at Responsible Statecraft. From 1980 to 1985 and from 1989 to 2015, he was the Washington bureau chief of Inter Press Service.