Trump’s Rating in Mexico Lowest of 37 Nations

Donald Trump is an unpopular leader worldwide compared to other recent presidents of the United States but nowhere is he more unpopular than in Mexico.

A new Pew Research Center survey numerically confirms the common knowledge that President Trump is not very popular in this country.

The nonpartisan fact tank conducted a survey among 40,448 respondents in 37 countries around the globe between February and May of this year to elicit perceptions of President Trump as well as attitudes towards the United States and the American people.

The data shows that dissatisfaction with Trump seems to have affected Mexican’s attitudes to the United States more generally.

While results for Mexico follow the same broad pattern as other nations, they tend to reflect an even lower perception of the superpower and its leadership than other surveyed countries.

Just 5% of respondents in Mexico said that they had confidence in Trump in international affairs, the lowest confidence rating of any U.S. president in Mexico since the organization began surveying here.

Mexico’s view of Trump was the lowest of the 37 countries surveyed and is more than four times lower than the 22% median that Trump received across the survey.

Ninety-one per cent of surveyed Mexicans think that Trump is arrogant, 85% say he is intolerant and 83% consider him dangerous. The figures for Mexico are among the highest of all surveyed countries.

Trump is regarded as a strong leader —  77% think so — but just 11% think he is charismatic, 11% that he is well qualified to be president and just 8% believe that he cares about ordinary people.

Mexico’s confidence rating in former president Barack Obama reached a peak of 55% at the start of his term while the lowest rating given to his predecessor, George W. Bush, was 16%, well above Trump’s score.

Mexico’s favorability rating towards the U.S. has also slumped dramatically in the space of just two years. Mexicans’ general attitude towards their northern neighbor has dropped from 66% in 2015 to just 30% today.

Forty-two per cent of respondents indicated that their view of the U.S. was very unfavorable, a seven-fold increase on 2015 numbers.

The survey also found that a median of 76% of respondents across all countries indicated that they were opposed to Trump’s plan to build a wall on the Mexico-U.S. border and no country among those surveyed had a majority who supported the wall.

Overall just 16% of respondents endorsed the president’s plan.

Unsurprisingly, the figure was rather higher in Mexico where 94% were opposed.

Other Mexican attitudes towards the U.S. have also experienced a downturn: 41% of Mexican respondents had a favorable view of the American people, a fall of 18 points since 2013.

Positive attitudes towards the spread of United States ideas and culture — otherwise known as soft power —  also experienced a decline, from 41% in 2013 to just 26% today.

However, younger people tend to have a more positive attitude with 38% of those aged 18 to 29 indicating a positive perception of U.S. influence in that area, reflecting a common global trend.

Further findings of the survey as they relate to Mexicans:

• Only 25% like American democratic ideas.
• 32% think that the United States government respects the personal freedoms of its people, down 24% on 2015 numbers.
• 57% of respondents like American pop culture such as music, movies and television.
• 80% disapprove of Trump’s plan to withdraw from trade pacts.
• 76% disapprove of tighter immigration restrictions on citizens of Muslim majority nations.
• 67% believe that relations between the two countries will get worse, 26% believe they will stay the same and just 4% think the relationship will get better.
• 30% had confidence in German Chancellor Angela Merkel to do the right thing on the world stage, 23% expressed confidence in Chinese President Xi Jinping and 19% in Russian President Vladimir Putin.