Close and disappointed: 67% of Canadians see American democracy as a project that has lost considerable luster in recent years, to the point of no longer being considered a model to follow in the rest of the world, indicates an international survey conducted in 34 countries by the Pew Research Center and whose data was revealed on Tuesday.
This is the greatest doubt expressed about the democratic framework of the United States on a global scale, ahead of Japan (65%), the United Kingdom (63%) and Germany (62%) , where the same criticism is widely shared.
Canada, however, maintains a high level of confidence in President Joe Biden’s management of world affairs (52%), but 55% disapprove of the way his government is handling the war launched by Israel on the Palestinian enclave of Gaza. the day after the Hamas attack on October 7. Canadians are also divided on American policies towards China and those aimed at countering climate change, but they continue to approve at 48% of Washington’s foreign policy on the subject of Ukraine and the war in aggression imposed on it by Vladimir Putin’s Russia for more than two years, indicates this global investigation.
In all of the 34 countries whose mood was surveyed in spring 2024 by Pew, the image of the United States remains very favorable for 54% of respondents, following ideological lines and demographic realities. sometimes surprising, noted the American research and think tank.
“In many countries, people on the ideological right and adults aged 35 and under are more likely than others to evaluate the United States positively,” the report says. Canada is a good example of ideological division: a majority of adults who consider themselves to be on the right (66%) have a favorable opinion of the United States, compared to only 37% of those on the left. »
Note that the Poles are the people with the most confidence in Americans, at 86%, a spectacular measure on the European continent, where the favorable opinion expressed towards the United States is generally lower, oscillating between 46% in France and 56% in Italy.
Between 2023 and 2024, this positive perception, however, saw a significant drop from 12 to 10 points in Australia, Israel, South Africa and the Netherlands, underlines Pew.
Pro-Trump Tunisians and Hungarians
On the international scene, barely two countries, Tunisia and Hungary, which have to deal with an autocratic regime for one and a democracy, which has become illiberal, weakened for the other, express greater confidence in the former President and Republican candidate Donald Trump than toward President Joe Biden.
These exceptions, however, confirm an inverse rule which has been recorded in 24 other countries, including Canada, and where the Democratic president is considered the safest person to maintain the balance of the world.
The gap between the two politicians can even be highly significant, varying from 49 points in favor of Joe Biden in the very progressive Sweden, 48 points in Germany, 26 points in France and 22 points in Canada, while he remains almost imperceptible in Israel, at 3 points.
Finally, since the start of Joe Biden’s mandate in 2021, Canadians’ confidence in the American president has fallen considerably, from 77% when he arrived at the White House to 52% in 2024. And the same trend is measured in many other countries where the assessment of its influence on the international scene is, on the eve of the next presidential election, “at its lowest”, summarizes the organization.
The only source of comfort for him: at 52% in Canada, 42% in France and 63% in Germany, this level of confidence, even low, remains higher, by far, than for Donald Trump during his only mandate , between 2017 and 2020. In these countries, the populist never exceeded 28%, during the four years of his chaotic presidency.