For the first time in roughly twenty years of polling, the world has decided it likes China more than the United States. Not slightly more. Not in a few outlier countries. More. In 25 out of 36 countries surveyed by Pew Research Center, people now view China more favorably than the US, including in Canada, Mexico, France, Germany, and the UK. This is not a blip. This is a verdict.
The Numbers Are Brutal, So Let's Just Look At Them
The Pew Research Center surveyed more than 42,000 people across 35 countries plus the West Bank and east Jerusalem between February and May of this year. The findings, released Wednesday, are the kind of thing that usually gets buried in a State Department footnote and quietly mourned by career diplomats over warm white wine.
In 25 out of 36 countries and territories, people now hold more favorable views of China than the United States. In 22 of those same countries, people trust Xi Jinping more than Donald Trump. That list includes Canada, Mexico, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. The countries where the US still comes out ahead? Israel, Japan, India, South Korea, the Philippines, and Poland. That's it. Six countries. And even their numbers are sliding.
Laura Silver, associate director of Pew's Global Attitudes Research, told the Associated Press this is the first time in the roughly twenty years Pew has been tracking these opinions that China has pulled decisively ahead. Not close. Ahead. 'There was just an actual relationship between the outbreak of the war and the sense that the U.S. is just not contributing to peace and stability,' Silver said.
Canada Is a Case Study in How Fast You Can Torch a Friendship
If you want a single data point that captures how thoroughly the Trump administration has blown up America's international standing, look at Canada. In 2023, 57% of Canadians held favorable views of the United States. According to Pew, that number is now 33%. Meanwhile, favorable views of China among Canadians went from 14% to 44% over the same period.
Think about that math for a second. Trump spent the better part of two years threatening to annex Canada as the 51st state, slapping tariffs on Canadian goods, and treating America's closest neighbor and longest ally like a regional inconvenience. And somehow, people are surprised that Canadians warmed up to Beijing in the meantime. You don't have to love Xi Jinping to prefer someone who isn't actively trying to erase your country's sovereignty as a bit.
This is what diplomatic self-sabotage looks like in polling data. You don't lose Canada gradually. You lose Canada by calling it the 51st state on a loop until people start checking what China's trade terms look like.
Europe Has Officially Stopped Giving America the Benefit of the Doubt
The UK is a particularly stark example. Three years ago, there was a 32 percentage point gap in America's favor when Brits were asked to compare their views of the US and China. Now, according to Pew, they view the two countries roughly equally. Thirty-two points, gone. That's not drift. That's a complete reassessment.
Major European countries including France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Sweden, and the Netherlands have all shifted their opinions toward China and away from the US. This is happening across governments of different political stripes, in countries with very different relationships with both Washington and Beijing. The common thread isn't ideology. It's experience.
Silver pointed to several specific drivers: Trump's demands to control Greenland, the American military operation that captured Venezuela's then-leader Nicolas Maduro, and the US handling of the Israeli-Hamas war in Gaza. 'The U.S. has done a lot in terms of global engagement in recent months to years that is not being perceived positively internationally,' she said. Which is a very measured, academic way of saying that people watched and drew conclusions.
China Didn't Win This. America Handed It Over.
Here is the part that deserves some intellectual honesty: China has not suddenly become a beacon of human rights, democratic governance, or global goodwill. Pew's own data shows the US still leads China on perceived respect for personal freedoms, though the gap is shrinking. And it's shrinking, the report makes clear, primarily because views of the US have collapsed, not because views of China have soared.
Silver is explicit about this. China appears to have gained largely by comparison with the US, she said. 'By comparison, we know that China is seen to be a more reliable partner in many places. It's more likely to be seen to contribute to global peace and stability.' That's not a compliment to Beijing. That's an indictment of Washington.
The other factor Pew cites is the fading of COVID-19 as a global grievance against China. People have short memories, and the lab leak debates and early cover-up allegations have receded. What hasn't receded is watching the US launch a war against Iran while simultaneously threatening neighbors and imposing tariffs on allies. Recency bias is real, and the US has been very busy giving people recent things to be biased about.
The One Country That Still Loves America Unconditionally
Israel. About 80% of Israelis view the United States favorably, compared to 19% for China. That number tracks. The US and Israel launched a joint war against Iran during the survey window, so the favorable rating from Israel is doing exactly the work you'd expect it to do.
The other five countries holding favorable views of the US, Japan, India, South Korea, the Philippines, and Poland, all share something in common: significant security concerns about China in their immediate region. Their continued preference for the US is not necessarily a vote of confidence in Trump so much as a calculation about who they need in a tight spot. That's a very different thing from admiration. Pew notes that even their views of the US have dimmed considerably in recent years.
Eight in ten Israelis and a handful of Pacific Rim nations with genuine threat calculations. That is the current coalition of people who look at the United States and feel good about what they see. The diplomatic achievement of a lifetime.
The Dingo Take
This poll is going to get dismissed by the usual suspects as globalist hand-wringing, as if international opinion is something only weak countries care about. But here's the thing: soft power is what makes hard power sustainable. Alliances, trade relationships, diplomatic trust, the basic assumption that America is a responsible actor on the world stage, these things have material consequences. They affect who picks up the phone, who shares intelligence, who shows up when you need them. Twenty years of Pew polling, and this is the first time China has come out ahead. That didn't happen in a vacuum.
What's genuinely remarkable about this data is how fast it moved. Canada went from 57% favorable to 33% in three years. The UK lost a 32-point gap in America's favor. These aren't slow cultural shifts. These are responses to specific, observable events. Tariffs on allies. Threats to annex a neighboring democracy. A war launched while Gaza burned. People connected the dots. Loudly.
And what do we get in return for all this diplomatic wreckage? Six countries that still like us more than China, one of which just fought a war alongside us and five of which are worried China will eat them. That's the return on investment. Decades of painstakingly built international goodwill, traded in so a 79-year-old man could feel powerful on social media. History is going to have a field day with this one.
