US Image Sinks Below Russia's Under Trump, Survey Finds
By Reuters | 08 May, 2026

The US democracy perception score plunged from +22% in 2024 to -16%, and it was most frequently named as the country posing the greatest threat to the world, after Russia and Israel.

FILE PHOTO: A general view of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., U.S. August 6, 2022. REUTERS/Ken Cedeno/File Photo

Global perceptions of the U.S. have deteriorated for a second consecutive year and are now worse than views of Russia, an annual study on democracy published on Friday showed, as U.S. President Donald Trump's policies continue to severely strain the NATO alliance.

The Denmark-based Alliance of Democracies Foundation, which commissioned the survey, said the U.S. was also most frequently named in response to which country posed the greatest threat to the world, after Russia and Israel. The survey did not go into details on the criteria used, but the Alliance says its aim is to defend and advance democratic values.

"The fast decline of the United States' perception around the world is saddening but not shocking," alliance founder and former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said.

"U.S. foreign policy over the past 18 months has, among other things, called into question the transatlantic relationship, imposed widespread tariffs, and threatened to invade a NATO ally's territory," he added.

Trump's tariffs, his repeated threats to control Greenland, a fellow NATO member through Denmark, a cut in U.S. aid to Ukraine as well as the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran and the ensuing spike in oil prices have deeply unsettled transatlantic relations.

Enraged that European countries have declined to send their navies to open the Strait of Hormuz to global shipping after the start of the air war on Iran, Trump in April said he considered withdrawing from NATO, further weakening the alliance.

The Democracy Perception Index survey, which ranks the perception of countries from -100% to +100%, showed that net perception of the U.S. had swung to -16% from +22% two years ago, placing it behind Russia at -11% and China at +7%. It did not provide a reason for the positive sentiment on China.

Polling firm Nira Data conducted the survey between March 19 and April 21, based on more than 94,000 respondents in 98 countries. Country perceptions were measured in a sample of 46,600 respondents in 85 countries.

The report was published ahead of the Copenhagen Democracy Summit, which takes place on May 12.

(Reporting by Jesus Calero, editing by Louise Rasmussen and Terje Solsvik; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)