Poll shows how most respondents view current US policies strengthening China and fragmenting West : Shared by Kul Gautam
A most revealing finding is that only 16% of EU citizens now consider the US as a dependable ally. And most people in BRICS+ countries see China in a favorable light.
Timothy Garton Ash, Ivan Krastev, Mark Leonard
European Council on Foreign Relations
January 15, 2026
A new poll of 25,949 respondents across 21 countries conducted in November 2025 reveals that Trump's "America First" approach is driving global publics closer to China and fragmenting the Western alliance.
Around the world, many people expect China's already considerable global influence to grow over the next decade, while few expect American power to increase.
Trump's approval ratings have declined dramatically since a year ago, with Indian support dropping from 84% to 53%. Only in Ukraine and South Korea do majorities view China as a rival or adversary.
Majorities in South Africa, Brazil, Turkey and Russia believe maintaining good relationships with both the US and China is realistically possible. Europeans have become the world's chief pessimists, with most doubting the EU can deal on equal terms with the US or China. Only 16% of EU citizens now consider the US an ally, while 20% see it as a rival or enemy.
Russians increasingly view Europe rather than the US as their adversary, with only 37% considering the US an adversary compared to 48% last year. Ukrainians now look more to Brussels than Washington, with 39% viewing the EU as an ally versus only 18% for the US.
Most people in China view the EU's policies as different from America's, and 46% consider the EU a partner compared to viewing the US chiefly as a rival. Europeans express high levels of worry about Russian aggression, major European war, and nuclear weapons use, with strong support for boosting defense spending, conscription, and developing a European nuclear deterrent.
"Donald Trump did not go into politics to make China great again. But that is what the latest poll of global public opinion from the European Council on Foreign Relations suggests he has done in the eyes of the world."
"Life without a hegemon is how most people appear to imagine the post-American world."
"In 2026 Europe could end up squeezed or simply ignored in such a world in flux."
"European publics appear to be well prepared for the message recently conveyed by Chancellor Friedrich Merz that the 'Pax Americana' is over."
"In an era of 'changes unseen in a century', [European leaders] will need to find new ways not just to manage in a multipolar world, but to become a pole in this world—or disappear among the others."
If this is “America First”, it is hard to see who comes second. The ECFR polling suggests that Donald Trump’s return has not checked China’s rise, but accelerated its acceptance.
ReplyDeleteTrump did not set out to make China great again. But by reducing American foreign policy to raw transactions and threats, he has quietly relieved much of the world of the need to choose sides. If Washington no longer claims to lead a rules-based order, aligning with Beijing starts looking like pragmatism.
The most striking finding is not that China is expected to grow stronger, but that it is no longer widely feared. Across much of the Global South, China is seen as an ally or necessary partner, while the US is viewed as powerful, unpredictable, and increasingly self-absorbed. America matters, but no longer inspires.
Trump has made the US a “normal” great power. In doing so, he has normalised China’s rise. Multipolarity, long cheered by Western intellectuals on the left in particular, is arriving stripped of its illusions: fewer values, fewer loyalties, and far more room for Beijing to operate.
For Europe, the lesson is brutal. This new world does not reward moral posturing or soft power. Either Europe becomes a real power again and learns to act like one, or it will discover that it has become irrelevant in a China-first world.
Yes, Thomas: "Across much of the Global South, China is seen as an ally or necessary partner, while the US is viewed as powerful, unpredictable, and increasingly self-absorbed. America matters, but no longer inspires". Europe has some tough choices to make - either to rearm, become a "real power" again in the conventional sense, or partner with the Global South to re-write the rules of a new world order - still based on the fundamental principles of the UN Charter, the Bretton Woods & WTO rules, etc. but updated to the realities of 2025 and the emerging AI-future, rather than those of 1945 or earlier era, Pax Americana must not be replaced by Pax Sinica, or some other multipolar world with regional spheres of influence, but by a true multilateral world order based on the realization of the enlightened interdependence of humankind - and the emerging demographic reality of the Afro-Asian continents comprising more than 3/4th of humanity before the end of the current century.
DeleteKul, I agree with your diagnosis that coalition-busting may be replacing coalition-building. That is a danger, but the deeper issue is structural. American foreign policy treats diplomacy as a loyalty test rather than an instrument. Tariffs on allies, performative UN votes, and transactional demands are symptoms of a shift away from alliance-building. Fear may produce short-term compliance, but it does not produce durable alignment.
DeleteCalling out the “Emperor for having no clothes” may be emotionally satisfying, but many governments calculate that public defiance carries real costs while quiet hedging does not. What we are seeing is not fawning so much as risk management. Allies work around Washington rather than with it. They preserve cooperation where possible while insulating themselves where necessary. That is a signal of American decline in influence.
And it brings us back to the UN votes. When even sympathetic or sceptical states choose consensus language over alignment with the US, it is not because they love UN bureaucracy. It is because they do not trust Washington to distinguish between reform and rupture.
Power matters, as you note. But power that repeatedly isolates itself may find that its armour is heavier than it used to be and less flexible than it once was.
Maybe US no longer being.a viable place where the global south elites send their children from Uni is one of the final straws. The US does not export anything to the global south, is out of bounds now for trips to Disneyland, for Uni ? USAID and soft aid no longer there - all that remains is threat of tariffs or other bullying. While the US rattles the sword China keeps building highways, hospitals and the global south are learning Mandarin while their young people look East for Uni and the future.
ReplyDelete