Shoppers and travellers from Canada to Denmark are refusing U.S. goods and holidays as the country's favourable rating abroad stands at a median 37 per cent across 36 countries, Pew Research found.

China is now viewed more favourably than the U.S. in most of the 36 countries Pew surveyed between 8 February and 13 May 2026, with the U.S. ahead in only six. Confidence in Donald Trump stood at a median 23 per cent, and favourable views of the U.S. fell significantly in 15 of the 24 countries with a trend from 2025.

Trump's approval at home fell to 37 per cent in a Marquette Law School national poll of 1,023 adults taken from 2 to 9 September, with 63 per cent disapproving and 47 per cent strongly disapproving. Approval of his handling of the war with Iran stood at 26 per cent, tariffs at 30 per cent and inflation at 19 per cent.

Sixty-three per cent of travellers from Canada, the UK, Germany, France, Mexico and India cited the political climate in the U.S. as a reason to stay away, 38 per cent cited safety and 32 per cent cited tariffs and trade policy, according to a 2025 Skift survey.

Opinion since January 2025

Favourable views of the U.S. fell 32 points in Mexico, from 61 to 29 per cent, and 20 points in Canada, from 54 to 34 per cent, in Pew's survey of 24 countries taken from 8 January to 26 April 2025. Ratings dropped significantly in 15 of the 24, leaving a median of 49 per cent favourable and 49 per cent unfavourable. Pew's 2026 median of 37 per cent covers a different set of 36 countries.

A median of 80 per cent across the 24 countries described Trump as arrogant, 65 per cent as dangerous and 28 per cent as honest, and 62 per cent had little or no confidence in him, Pew found.

Global approval of U.S. leadership fell to a median 31 per cent in 2025 from 39 per cent in 2024 across 132 countries and areas, Gallup found, while disapproval reached a record 48 per cent. China's leadership drew 36 per cent approval, the widest gap in China's favour in nearly 20 years.

Approval of U.S. leadership among NATO members fell to a median 21 per cent in 2025 from 35 per cent, Gallup found. Germany dropped from 55 to 16 per cent and Portugal from 54 to 16 per cent.

Net perception of the U.S. fell from plus 20 in 2024 to minus five in 2025 across 96 countries in the Democracy Perception Index, while China rose to plus 14. Nico Jaspers, chief executive of the pollster Nira Data, said more countries viewed China positively than the U.S. "for the first time."

Eleven per cent of Europeans called the U.S. an ally in a survey of 19,481 people in 15 countries in May 2026, down from 22 per cent in November 2024, the European Council on Foreign Relations found. Half called it a necessary partner and 25 per cent a rival or adversary. Authors Jana Kobzová and Paweł Zerka wrote that Europeans are "breaking some old taboos" on defence.

Friedrich Merz said on the night he won Germany's election, 23 February 2025, that his priority was independence from the U.S. "I have no illusions at all about what will come out of America," he said.

Mark Carney told supporters on 29 April 2025, the night he won Canada's election, that Canadians were over the shock of what he called the U.S. "betrayal".

Canada's boycott

Sixty-nine per cent of Canadians are choosing Canadian products even at higher prices and 55 per cent have stopped buying specific U.S. brands, according to a Build Canada poll taken from 31 August to 4 September and reported by TIME.

Canadian residents made 7.1 million fewer trips to the U.S. in 2025, a fall of 25 per cent, and their spending there dropped from C$22.1 billion to C$18.8 billion, Statistics Canada data show. Return trips from the U.S. in June 2026 were still 28.7 per cent below June 2024.

Canada's counter-tariffs on $27.6 billion of U.S. goods took effect on 8 September, answering duties Trump imposed on 22 August under Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, a provision no president had used before. Canadians calling the U.S. a reliable partner fell from 83 per cent in 2022 to 35 per cent in 2026, Pew found.

Canadians boycotted U.S. products, services and travel at higher rates than British or French respondents in a Kantar survey of 1,500 people per country taken in June and July 2025, Shelley Boulianne of Mount Royal University wrote in The Conversation. Left and right took part in equal measure in Canada and France.

Europe and tourism

Danish shoppers downloaded NonUSA and a second product-scanning app more than 100,000 times each after Trump announced in January 2026 new tariffs on Denmark and seven other European countries that opposed his calls to take Greenland, the Associated Press reported. NonUSA also recorded about 10,000 users in Germany.

European bookings to the U.S. for July 2026 fell 15.3 per cent year on year, the aviation analytics firm Cirium found. Sweden rated the U.S. at 19 per cent favourable in Pew's survey, the lowest in Europe, and Hungary was the only European country surveyed where a majority viewed it favourably.

The U.S. was the only one of 184 economies forecast by the World Travel and Tourism Council to lose international visitor spending in 2025, with the total falling to about $169 billion from $181 billion in 2024.

Support for Israel

The U.S. spent $21.7 billion on military aid to Israel between 7 October 2023 and September 2025, William Hartung calculated for Brown University's Costs of War project, a figure that excludes arms sales committed for later delivery.

The State Department approved $6.67 billion in sales to Israel in January 2026, including 30 Apache attack helicopters, the Associated Press reported. In May the department approved $992.4 million in guided rockets for Israel under an emergency declaration that waived congressional review, and its notice gave no reason for the emergency.

The U.S. vetoed a Security Council resolution on 18 September 2025 that demanded an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in Gaza and the lifting of Israeli restrictions on aid, after vetoing a similar draft in June 2025. Ten elected council members had tabled the September text as famine spread in Gaza.

A UN Commission of Inquiry found on 16 September 2025 that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, a finding Israel rejects. Gaza's health ministry put the death toll at 73,658 on 7 September 2026.

Trump authorised sanctions against the International Criminal Court in February 2025. The administration then sanctioned four ICC judges in June 2025, two more judges and two deputy prosecutors in August, the Palestinian rights groups Al-Haq, Al Mezan and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in September, and two further judges in December, citing the court's cases involving Israel.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in September 2026 the U.S. would not follow Britain's ban on goods from Israeli settlements. Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, warned of retaliatory trade action against Britain over the measures.

Ukraine aid

The administration paused military aid to Ukraine on 3 March 2025 and intelligence sharing on 5 March, days after Trump's Oval Office confrontation with Volodymyr Zelensky, and lifted both on 11 March. Defence secretary Pete Hegseth halted deliveries of Patriot interceptors, rockets and artillery shells in early July 2025 despite a Pentagon assessment that the transfers posed no risk to U.S. readiness, NBC News reported. Trump reversed the halt on 7 July and said he had not known about it.

Congress has passed no supplemental funding for Ukraine since April 2024 and no new drawdown package has been notified since September 2024, the special inspector general for Operation Atlantic Resolve reported. Allies now buy U.S. weapons for Ukraine through a NATO mechanism on condition that the U.S. pays nothing, and 29 countries put $6.7 billion into it in its first year.

Trump said at the NATO summit in Ankara in July 2026 that Ukraine would get a licence to build Patriot interceptors, then said on 31 July the U.S. had not agreed to one. On 3 September he said the U.S. would ask European governments to repay it for weapons sent to Ukraine. Congress had already appropriated $45.8 billion to replace that equipment, the Government Accountability Office reported.

Russian strikes killed 1,396 civilians in Ukraine in the first half of 2026, 37 per cent more than a year earlier, the UN human rights monitoring mission reported.

Envoys and Russia

Steve Witkoff, Trump's special envoy, advised Putin aide Yuri Ushakov in October 2025 on how Putin should approach Trump over Ukraine, according to call transcripts Bloomberg published on 25 November 2025. Trump called it "standard negotiations."

Jared Kushner met Putin in Moscow before holding talks in Kyiv on 6 September 2026 as one of two U.S. envoys on the war. Kushner attended Donald Trump Jr.'s Bahamas wedding in May, which Umar Kremlev, a Russian oligarch decorated by Putin in April and sanctioned by Ukraine in December 2024, helped pay for, ProPublica reported on 14 September.

Holden Triplett, counterintelligence director on Trump's first-term National Security Council, told ProPublica that Russian intelligence cultivates relatives of U.S. officials. "Money is a tried-and-true method to gain access," he said. A spokesperson for Trump Jr. said Kremlev is a personal friend and that the two have no business relationship.

The Treasury renewed licences on 17 April 2026 allowing purchases of Russian crude shipped on sanctioned vessels, a day after Treasury secretary Scott Bessent said it would not. Thirteen senators wrote to Bessent on 30 April alleging a pause of more than 14 months in counter-evasion sanctions on Russia. The administration lifted sanctions on the Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, a Putin ally, on 29 October 2025.

Iran and the boat strikes

U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran began on 28 February 2026. At least 3,375 civilians had been killed in Iran by 24 July, including 168 children and several teachers in the bombing of a school in Minab on the first day, five UN special rapporteurs said, citing the UN Charter's ban on the use of force against another state.

The House voted 214 to 208 on 23 July to direct an end to the war. A Senate companion measure failed 47 to 49.

U.S. forces have struck boats 69 times in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific since 2 September 2025, killing at least 227 people, Human Rights Watch reported on 2 September 2026, describing the killings as extrajudicial. Ida Sawyer of Human Rights Watch said the administration had "summarily killed more than 200 people over the course of the past year."

Presidential income and pardons

Cryptocurrency was Trump's largest source of income in 2025, bringing in more than $1.4 billion, according to his financial disclosure released on 1 July 2026. Sales of World Liberty Financial tokens, the family crypto company, earned more than $550 million and his memecoin more than $635 million.

Aryam Investment 1, an Abu Dhabi vehicle backed by UAE national security adviser Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, bought 49 per cent of World Liberty Financial for $500 million four days before Trump's January 2025 inauguration, the Wall Street Journal reported. About $187 million went to Trump family entities and at least $31 million to entities tied to Witkoff, according to the report. The administration approved sales to the Abu Dhabi firm G42 of computing power equal to 35,000 of Nvidia's most advanced processors in November 2025. World Liberty and the White House deny any wrongdoing and said the deal did not influence policy.

A group backed by Tahnoon also holds 49 per cent of the holding company for World Liberty's planned trust bank, which the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency conditionally approved on 14 August 2026, the Journal reported.

About 70 per cent of Trump's second-term clemency grants bypassed the Justice Department's pardon office, CBS News found. Pardons and commutations have cancelled close to $1.7 billion in restitution, fines and forfeitures, House Judiciary Committee Democrats calculated in August.

Accountability

The U.S. signed the Rome Statute in 2000 and told the UN in 2002 that it would not ratify it, which leaves the ICC without jurisdiction over USians except for conduct on the territory of a member state. Universal jurisdiction laws in several European states, and civil suits under U.S. law including the federal war crimes statute at 18 U.S.C. section 2441, remain open to victims of the Iran war and the boat strikes.

Voters elect all 435 House members and 35 senators in the midterm elections on 3 November 2026.