Regardless of the verdict America’s voters deliver to President Donald Trump in the November 3 midterm elections, it may prove impossible to recover the goodwill and friendly trust that America’s policies, people and democracy enjoyed for so long across much of the world.
The weakened United Nations system will be unable to help Washington pull the international community back from the knife-edge, particularly if Trump follows through on his looming post-election threat of a catastrophic U.S.-Israeli military bombardment of Iran.
Iran’s new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has reportedly ordered immediate retaliation without geographical restrictions. Tehran has explicitly warned of devastating retaliatory strikes against Israel and any Gulf Kingdom opening its airspace to U.S. and Israeli warplanes.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres lamented in his final speech to the UN General Assembly that “trust has frayed” and that wars have erupted with “devastating consequences” and dragged on with “despicable cruelty.”
Superpowers must recognize that “their power isn’t so super. Their power has limits,” he warned. Military power alone cannot secure peace, just as economic and technological power cannot command stability or guarantee security.
The biggest erosion of trust in U.S. intentions has occurred among America’s most loyal and longstanding allies within the transatlantic alliance. European nations increasingly appear convinced that Trump and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu could resume bombing Iran to secure domestic political gains rather than respond to any imminent threat from Tehran.
Consequently, leading European countries, including Germany, France and Britain, have broken ranks with Washington to strongly support the intensive efforts of Qatari and Pakistani mediators to advance a seven-step ceasefire framework and avert an all-out regional cataclysm.
Europeans are particularly worried that a renewed U.S.-Israeli war against Iran would deliver long-term strategic windfalls to China and Russia in West Asia. Tougher merchant shipping blockades by the United States and Iran in the Strait of Hormuz, combined with increased Houthi attacks around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea, would severely damage European economies while allowing China and Russia to position themselves as alternative mediators for regional stability.
Washington’s attention and military assets would also be significantly diverted from the war in Ukraine and efforts to contain China in the Indo-Pacific. Above all, another regional war could push Global South countries further towards Chinese-led, non-Western economic arrangements such as BRICS, as they seek to reduce their vulnerability to economic coercion by the United States and European Union.
Yet Europeans can do little more than wring their hands over Trump’s highly aggressive and unilateral approach to foreign policy, which has fundamentally transformed global trade, security and diplomatic alliances. Under his “America First” doctrine, Washington has largely discarded traditional multilateral diplomacy in favor of raw economic leverage and direct military intervention, with little regard for international rules and conventions.
Much of the Global South is dismayed by Trump’s extensive military and economic support for Israel’s sweeping campaigns across Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Syria, culminating in full-scale U.S.-Israeli military strikes against Iran.
The European Union, China and India are equally vexed by Trump’s use of import tariffs and technology export controls as primary weapons to extract economic concessions and wealth from them. They deplore the threat of losing access to U.S. markets and the dollar-based financial system that has traditionally underpinned world trade and investment.
Many respected analysts strongly disagree with Trump’s assertions that his foreign policies are delivering gains for the American people.
Data from the Munich Security Conference signals that trust in the United States has plummeted by 52 percentage points in Canada, 21 in Italy, 17 in France and 15 in Germany. A separate Pew survey found that confidence in U.S. leadership had fallen to just 23% in Germany.
Unfavorable views of the United States have reached record highs, according to a YouGov poll, climbing to 84% in Denmark, 72% in Germany and 66% in Spain. If sustained, this trend could trigger a major strategic shift in European public opinion away from the traditional U.S.-led transatlantic alliance.
A Pew Research Center survey covering 36 countries found that 34% of respondents identified the United States as a major threat to their own country.
It revealed widespread rejection of U.S. foreign policy. Some 76% of international respondents expressed no confidence in Trump, while 77% disapproved of U.S. tariffs, 76% disapproved of Washington’s handling of Gaza, and only 35% believed the United States contributed to global peace.
Only 39% of global respondents expressed comfort with the United States playing a leading international role. Canada, Japan, Australia and the United Kingdom registered significantly higher levels of comfort, at 60%, 58%, 55% and 54%, respectively.
Even in strategic partner India, favorable views of America have fallen from 54% to 45%, while 36% of Indians continue to regard Russia as their key ally, according to Pew data.
Trump has successfully projected America’s raw power, but at a potentially enormous cost to the global soft power that once anchored friendship and goodwill towards the American people in much of the world.
Increasingly, America’s deep domestic political polarization reinforces the perception that a country so divided at home can no longer be trusted abroad.