Global image of US leadership now trails China: Gallup

The median global approval rating for U.S. leadership held steady in 2018 but was overtaken by global approval for China’s leadership, according to a poll released Thursday.

A Gallup poll assessing the global approval of the leadership in the U.S., China, Germany and Russia found that marks for the U.S. increased slightly from 30 percent in 2017 to 31 percent in 2018.

China jumped from 31 percent in 2017 to 34 percent in 2018, leap-frogging the U.S., the poll found.

{mosads}Germany received the highest marks of the four countries at 39 percent. That figure is down slightly from 41 percent in the 2017 survey.

The poll found that global approval for Russian leadership crept up slightly from 27 to 30 percent, still lower the U.S.

The Gallup poll was based on interviews with roughly 1,000 adults from each country surveyed. It has a margin of error range of plus or minus 2 percentage points to 5.1 percentage points.

The poll was released as President Trump departed Vietnam without a formal agreement with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The two met for a second time this week as the U.S. continues to push for denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. The president said he did not want to rush into a deal.

While international leaders have offered cautious optimism about a breakthrough in North Korea, Trump has roiled his global counterparts with some of his foreign policy throughout his presidency.

He has been critical at times of typical U.S. allies and groups like NATO and offered kind words for traditional adversaries such as Russia and North Korea.