Trump claims U.S. is ‘respected again' in the world. 'Preposterous,' say allies and diplomats
Asked on Monday, President Trump’s 500th day in office, what he considers his top foreign policy achievement, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders quickly replied: "The strengthening of relationships with a number of foreign leaders." The State Department said the same with a tweet: “After 500 days in office, U.S. leadership is back on the world stage as the result of @POTUS's policies.”
It's no surprise that top administration officials have alighted on that claim. The president has been making it at every opportunity — during a rally last week in Nashville, at the U.S. Naval Academy commencement ceremony and in off-the-cuff remarks to White House reporters Friday, just to name the latest audiences.
"We are respected again, I can tell you that. We are respected again," Trump told the naval cadets. "A lot of things have happened. We’re respected again."
The evidence — both in nonpartisan polls and in the increasingly critical remarks of exasperated allies — suggests otherwise.
The president’s bravado is about to be tested dramatically, beginning with a visit Thursday from Japan’s President Shinzo Abe. On the weekend, he is to attend a summit in Canada with other leaders of the G7 — the Group of Seven major powers — and then hold the most high-stakes event of all on Tuesday — his meeting in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
After 16 months, however, leaders of long-standing allies like Abe, France’s President Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel and Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May — all initially deferential to Trump and his famous ego — have grown frustrated and at times disapproving.
Significantly, so have their citizens, increasing the pressure on foreign leaders to distance themselves from Trump’s America. Across 134 countries, the median approval of U.S. leadership dropped 18 points in Trump's first year, to a record low of just 30%, according to a Gallup survey released in January. That was before Trump's decisions to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal and impose tariffs on a number of allies, which further alienated many of them.
The finding echoed a Pew Research Center survey last year that found in all but two of 37 nations polled, Trump got far lower marks than President Obama;
the exceptions were Russia and Israel.
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Originally Posted by Zippyjuan
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