Almost one-third of Europeans distrust post-Trump America: Poll

A staggering 32 percent of all Europeans believe the United States can no longer be considered trustworthy following the election of Donald Trump as president in 2016, a new poll has found.

The poll, conducted after the 2020 US presidential election on 15,000 people in 11 European countries, also found that 60 percent of Europeans believed the US political system was “completely” or “somewhat broken.”

The survey was commissioned by the European Council on Foreign Relations and carried out by Datapraxis and YouGov in November and December 2020.

It was carried out before Trump incited his supporters to storm the US Capitol on January 6, as the US legislature was confirming Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election and the victory of his rival, Joe Biden.

Distrust of America was highest among Germans, with 53 percent of respondents saying they either strongly agreed or agreed that a post-Trump America couldn’t be relied upon.

Only in Poland and Hungary did a higher percentage of people believe the American political system was working well or somewhat well, with 56 percent of Hungarians and 58 percent of Poles expressing such a view.

And 59 percent of those polled said they believed China would become more powerful than the US within 10 years. A majority said they would want their country to stay neutral in a potential conflict between the US and China or Russia.

After assuming office in 2017, Trump unilaterally withdrew America from many bilateral or multilateral accords with other countries or world organizations. His 2018 unilateral removal of the US from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal concerned European sides, namely Germany, France, and the UK.

The outgoing US president also imposed tariffs on European goods in an attempt to win a perceived trade war.

Although lawmakers on either sides of the aisle in the US Congress opposed some of his policies — and the Democratic-held House impeached him, twice, the historic second time being after the assault on the Capitol building — the impulsive US president proceeded unfazed with most of his policies.

Biden, who is due to take office on Wednesday, has pledged to undo much of Trump’s record, including by returning the US to some international agreements.