Washington (AFP) – The majority of adults in the United States expect America’s relations with foreign adversaries such as Russia And North Korea To become more hostile, according to a new poll, a major shift in public opinion four years ago under President Donald Trump.
Two years into the Biden administration, 60% of American adults said relationships with opponents would worsen, up from 26% four years ago at the same point in the Trump administration, according to a Pearson Institute and Associated Press-NORC poll. Public Affairs Research Center. Only 21% say relations with allies will deteriorate, down from 46% at the time.
Overall, 39% expect the country’s global standing to get worse, compared to 48% who said so in 2018. It affects views on the country’s standing abroad.
“These findings really clearly show that hyperpartisanship” affects with confidence or gloom, respectively, Democrats and Republicans’ view of the United States abroad, said Sheila Kohantepe, political scientist and executive director of the Global Forum at the Pearson Institute in Chicago. Study and resolution of global conflicts.
In terms of the views expressed by people in the United States on American dealings abroad, the key factor is the “cohesion of the political bloc with the political bloc,” Kohantepe said.
Four years ago, three-quarters of Democrats expected the United States’ global standing to be damaged. Now, roughly the same percentage sees stabilization or improvement in the near future. By comparison, about 6 in 10 Republicans expected an improvement in 2018; Now that same proportion expects the current administration to falter.
Other states “may be laughing at us, waiting for us to break down,” said Kristi Woodard, a 30-year-old Republican in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She said she considers the US economy and leadership to suffer under President Joe Biden.
“I don’t think we really have allies anymore because the United States is just a joke at this point,” Woodard said.
But David Dvorin, a 49-year-old Democrat from Pittsburgh who works as a rate specialist, said Biden was gaining respect abroad by rallying international allies to respond to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
“The war in Ukraine demonstrated the leadership of the Biden administration, to be able to hold most of Europe together,” Dvorin said.
However, as Russia ramps up its attack on Ukraine, tensions with China grow over Taiwan and other issues, and the United States confronts North Korea and Iran over those countries’ nuclear programs, similar proportions of Republicans and Democrats say relations with adversaries will worsen in the next year.
The Pearson Institute/AP-NORC poll also showed strong support for a US foreign policy that protects women and minorities around the world — although few people believe the United States is doing world-shattering work in protecting those same interests at home.
The majority of adults in the United States said that they see preventing discrimination against women and minorities around the world as an important goal of U.S. foreign policy, and that the U.S. government has a great responsibility to protect the rights of these groups. And 78% of people in the United States believe that the United States should withhold financial support from other countries that fail to protect the rights of women and minorities.
However, about 1 in 5 adults in the United States believe that the country leads the world in protecting the rights of women, racial, ethnic, and religious minorities, or LGBTI people. Many believe the United States is among several countries that are doing it well, but about a third say other countries are doing better.
Rick Reinsch, 61, of Austin, Texas, works as a project manager for a consulting firm and describes himself as an independent politician with democratic leanings, who calls protecting the liberties of women and minorities abroad a “must” for the United States.
But he said the growing divide between Republicans and Democrats at home means Americans’ performance on this point is a “mixed bag,” as rights deteriorate in states most affected by the dismissive expectations of former President Donald Trump.
Chris Ormsby, 53, of Edmond, Oklahoma, a higher education official who describes himself as an independent politician, cited women’s rights in Iran, where women have been leading weeks of protests sparked by government demands that women cover their hair, among the rights issues at play in the outside.
“Maybe we can take more proactive steps” abroad about that, Ormsby said. But “I think there are other things to worry about, nuclear proliferation and things like that.” He described slowing climate change by moving the world away from fossil fuels as a priority of US policy abroad.
All of this leads to a strange dichotomy for those charged with shaping America’s policy on protecting human rights, said Kohantepe, an official at the Pearson Institute.
She said: “American policy is not insistent on protecting our rights as Americans think we should do abroad.”
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Dolby reported from New York.
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The survey of 1,003 adults was conducted September 9-12 using a sample taken from NORC’s AmeriSpeak Probability-Based Panel, which is designed to be representative of the US population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.
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