Judging from his own commentary, US President Donald Trump is obsessed with “ratings.” Television ratings. Approval ratings. Any kind of ratings will do. He wants the best.
While he has explained away relatively low approval ratings at home as “fake news,” he is now facing new headlines of low ratings abroad that put him under his German counterpart, Angela Merkel, as well as his erstwhile good friend, Xi Jinping. Russian President Vladimir Putin also beat him out by a few percentage points.
According to new research from Pew, a median of 70% across 25 countries polled lack confidence in the US president. 27% of those polled had confidence in Trump, versus 52% who had confidence in Angela Merkel and 46% who had confidence in French President Emmanuel Macron.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin received higher marks than Trump, with 34% and 30% of respondents expressing confidence in the leaders, respectively.
According to the poll, a plurality of supporters of far-right European parties had favorable views of Trump.
Despite the edge that Xi has over Trump reflected in the poll, most countries still feel it “would be better for the world to have” the US as the leading power, when compared with China.
That is because it is fake news. Most of the US based TV networks and the major print media, such as the NYT and WAPO, have lost credibility with the American people. The negative news coverage of the President is around 90 percent, with only 10 percent non negative. Global news on these outlets is almost a thing of the past. These "news" organizations would rather focus on scandal and other trivia instead of reporting real news. That is part of the reason I read the Asia Times.