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Most Canadians distrust Donald Trump, and they're far from alone: poll

Asked about Trump's character, 75 per cent said he's "arrogant," 65 per cent said "ignorant," and 62 per cent said "dangerous."

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Donald Trump has been U.S. president for less than six months but it’s been enough time to send opinions of American leadership plunging.

According to a Pew Research Center public survey of 37 countries, a median of just 22 percent of respondents have confidence in Trump to do the right thing in international matters, compared with 64 per cent at the end of Barack Obama’s presidency. As a country, the U.S.’s favourable rating fell in the same period to 49 per cent from 64 per cent.

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Israel and Russia were the only countries surveyed where the public prefers Trump to Obama.

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According to Pew, only 22 per cent of Canadian respondents indicated that they had a lot or some confidence in Donald Trump. At the end of his presidency, Barack Obama enjoyed the trust of 83 per cent of Canadians who responded to the same question. Trump’s presidency also appears to have affected Canadians’ views of the United States. Only 43 per cent of Canadians who participated in the survey expressed very or somewhat favourable views of the U.S., down from 65% when Obama left office.

The survey’s steepest slides in the view of Trump came in European allies such as Sweden, Netherlands and Germany, and in South Korea. The decline was less pronounced in some majority-Muslim countries such as Turkey, Tunisia and Jordan, partly because approval for Obama was already low. For instance, only 14 per cent of Jordanians had trust in Obama at the end of his tenure, compared with 9 percent for Trump. By comparison, 93 per cent of Swedes had confidence in Obama and only 10 percent feel the same way about Trump.

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Trump was the lowest rated of the world’s major leaders. The survey said a median of 42 per cent had confidence in Germany’s Angela Merkel, 28 per cent in China’s Xi Jinping, and 27 per cent in Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Pew said the overall view of the U.S., which Pew has followed since 2002, tends to track approval for the president, even if U.S. culture and Americans as people tend to win higher ratings than their leaders.

“The drop in favourability ratings for the United States is widespread,” Pew said. “The share of the public with a positive view of the U.S. has plummeted in a diverse set of countries from Latin America, North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Favourability ratings have only increased in Russia and Vietnam.”

The survey was conducted among 40,447 respondents in 37 countries from Feb. 16 to May 8. Asked about Trump’s character, 75 per cent said he’s “arrogant,” 65 per cent said “ignorant,” and 62 per cent said “dangerous.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Gregory Viscusi in Paris at gviscusi@bloomberg.net.

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