https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-approval-rating-trust-world-leaders-vladimir-putin-angela-merkel-pew-research-centre-a8564701.html
Article goes into further detail about how the world perceives the U.S., but this graph should tell you a lot about Trump's image in particular.
One small exception to this rule is among British respondents, 28 per cent of whom expressed confidence in Mr Trump, compared to 10 per cent of Germans, 9 per cent of French people and 7 per cent among Spanish respondents.
For the UK, it still represents a huge collapse in confidence following the Obama era. Two years into his first term in office, a total of 84 per cent of Brits said they had confidence in the US president. At the end of his presidential term, the figure was 79 per cent.
http://www.pewglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/09/PG_2018.10.1_U.S.-Image_0-4.png?w=309
I guess they must be tired of all that WINNING
I mean, I hate to say this as I greatly dislike the cruelty of Putin and Xi - but yeah - I "trust" them more in that they are consistent in their goals of making the world a shittier place for all but those that have won their favor. Trump has frequently shown an inability to even care for his own self-interest, let alone the interest of lobbyists or the American people.
The bars set pretty low when the choice is those three and a mentally unsound old man.
Globally having 70% no confidence rating to own the libs.
Well yeah, Putin is actually intelligent.
I expect the likes of Putin and Xi to lie when it's suits them.
I expect Trump to lie whenever.
Why's Merkel on that list? She's utterly unremarkable, and I happen to think she's competent enough.
She's the closest thing to the leader of the free world with the US and UK having morons in power, and France having the French equivalent of Hillary Clinton
Merkel is, as best I can tell, pretty straightforward. I don't know her specific politics or governing ability well enough to really say (my impressions are "not bad" and "meh", but with wide error bars), but she doesn't seem to lie or cheat. If she says Germany is going to, I dunno, reduce imports of natural gas, because it's bad for the environment and the exporters are all dickbags, it's fairly certain that Germany's going to at least try to do that, and the reasons are more or less what she says. I'm sure she exaggerates and stretches truths and hides things like anyone, but anything big is true enough.
Putin and Xi, you can trust to be evil. They will lie to your face but they lie for reason. If Putin says "we are intervening in Elbonia at the request of ethnic Russians being persecuted by the fascist Elbonian government", you may not be able to tell much about what's actually going on (are there ethnic Russians there? Is the government of Elbonia fascist? What sort of military action is being done? Is Elbonia even a real country?), but you know damn well what Putin's trying to do and what he wants you to think, and from there you can pretty quickly piece together what's actually going on. Same for Xi - they will lie, and cheat, and steal, and murder, but they have some kind of plan and they aren't doing it on a whim. You can trust a snake to be a snake.
Trump is an idiot. He lies for literally no reason. He doesn't care about truth or lies anymore, and so he doesn't even know what the truth is. Or what logic is, for that matter. If he tells you we're putting a 50% tariff on Latverian imports, that doesn't tell you jack shit. He might be doing it because he has a campaign rally in Pittsburgh next week and wants to brag about how much he's helping steelworkers (and even if you know this is why, you can't have any idea if Latveria exports anything related to steel or auto manufacture). He might be doing it because one of his business buddies could make a lot of money this way. He might be doing it because he misheard "Lithuania" on Fox News last night. He might be doing it because he thinks the Lithuanian ambassador is fugly. He might be doing it because he remembers Obama brokered a trade deal (and he may or may not remember correctly). He might be doing it because hey, turns out they're an evil dictatorship, we probably don't like that. You can't predict whether he's doing something for good reasons, evil reasons, or for no reason at all.
Headline feels a little misleading in light of the actual statistics. Trump, Putin, and Xi are all heavily distrusted by the majority of the world, where Merkel has a solid approval rating. The difference in Xi's trust rate compared to Trump, at least, can probably be boiled down to Chinese nationalism and fear of persecution if Chinese citizens don't rate him highly. I mean, their country holds one-sixth of the entire world's population, the entirety of which is monitored closely by the CCP for any signs of non-sanctioned free-thinking. That almost certainly skews the graph a little - compartively, Trump doesn't even have a solid approval rating in his own country, because we're allowed to call him a shit-head and suffer no consequences.
Xi is extremely authoritarian, but one positive I can say for him that I definitely can't for Trump is that he is clearly taking Climate Change much more seriously than the US, given that they're the largest investor in renewables worldwide. They've also constructed the largest radiotelescope on Earth.
I think Merkel and Macron are comparable. Macron is a bit more arrogant/disliked, but they're both center right and pragmatic, non ideologic leaders. Macron is hardly similar to Hilary Clinton though, i'd say Hillary is way worse. Keep in mind, democrats are more right wing on average than a lot of french or german right wing parties personalities.
I do agree that Merkel is quite pragmatic, but it took her ages to allow a vote on gay marriage even though more than 80% of the country were for it, as she still appeared to be vehemently opposed to the idea. Still, she's generally an effective leader and I hope she is able to stay in power.
oh yeah fuck that, I had a better image of her. that's really trash.
Xi wants to be a Great Leader. It's what he thinks of himself as - another Kublai Khan, or whatever the preferred Great emperor of China was, the kind of person to go down in history as Xi the Great. I do not think he will achieve it - as much a happenstance of the current times as it is his own character - but it's what he thinks he wants.
As such, he thinks long-term. He cannot be Xi the Great if China falls into collapse a decade after his death, after all, his nation must endure in greatness for at least a century to cement his legacy, preferably longer. And so climate change is a threat to be dealt with, handled. Likewise, he undertakes Great Projects, for what Great Man of History did not build bridges and roads? He builds no monuments to himself, not yet at least, it doesn't do to look like a try-hard. And he patronizes the arts and sciences, provided they dare not oppose him and are useful, respectively. They grow the stature of China and with it, the stature of himself.
Xi's lies are likewise the lies of a Great Man of History. You lie to your enemies, of course, that's subterfuge and strategy, no shame in it at all, you tell them believable lies to try to manipulate them to your advantage, Sun Tzu type lies. Lies to your own people, those are for their own protection, the Small People can't handle the truth, that's what Great Men are for, you tell white lies to keep civilization in order, keep people from getting out of line. Lies to himself, he thinks he doesn't do, that's unbecoming of a Great Man.
yep they don't give a shit
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/26/satellite-images-show-runaway-expansion-of-coal-power-in-china
Yes, but against the government's wishes,
My understanding is that China's not necessarily as simple as that, but I accept that the claim in the article I read posted here the other day on the subject didn't provide substantial proof, necessarily.
I'm sure the coal plants being built are due to corruption. Someone in the Party spent a lot of time, effort, and personal favors to get those things started, and they're important enough to force the projects to continue forward even in the face of a national electric power strategy.
For all the shit Merkel gets, she actually does her job like she means it and isn't just a distraction for the shifty backroom bullshit that countries like Russia, China and the US under Trump love to participate in. There's no real better word to describe her than "politician", an honest-to-god politician and not some Genghis Khan wannabe looking to rob governmental institutions for personal wealth and clique influence.
The people who complain the loudest are often ingrates. You don't know what you lost from the rule under that completely unremarkable person until you're rotting in a gulag because the next guy is a raving lunatic.
He is being provoked all the time but he keeps his cool and I admire it. He is dangerous but as a leader he knows how to play the game that the others play with him (especially the US).
The question is not if they are consistent with their evil agenda; it's asking if they can be trusted to do the right thing. It is beyond me as to how Trump can be compared at all the Putin and Xi. The furthest Trump has done is make a fool of himself and of the country through is rhetoric. That is not at all comparable to literally anything Putin and Xi have done to generally destroy the lives of those in their respective countries.
What a time we live in where people favor legitimate dictatorships to a celebrity president.
I trust that Xi Jinping has China's interests closer to his heart than Trump has America's interests close to his heart
Its probably because they don't care.
That dam had so many fuck ups, it caused a massive internal refugee crisis and a massive ecological crisis but now that it works? Who cares?
You are correct, I did overlook the full narrative of the question that is plain as day to see and it's bad reading to do so. I will highlight however that where I missed, "Confidence in Trump to do the right thing..." I feel you have lost focus on "Confidence in Trump to do the right thing regarding world affairs". Sadly, the moral thing and what's best for world affairs is far more complicated than it should be - but that complexity is unfortunately a fact of life. With the prompt fully clear now - it brings to attention the abysmal diplomatic charisma Trump has in working with our allies - who were the main demographic in this poll. Trump has often belittled our allies and shown an inability to respect even the most fundamental acts of cooperation and unity we share, like his half-hearted commitment to Article 5 of NATO and the abandonment of the Paris Agreement. The average citizen in the UK also has a much stronger grasp of Trump's domestic cruelties and failures, even if they far slighter than Russia and China.
So yeah, I don't favor Putin and Xi - and I don't think the 40 or so people who rated agree at the time of writing do either and it's frustrating you phrase it in that way. Westerners just have a much richer grasp of how loud and shitty Trump is to deal with on all levels than Xi or Putin - who despite their vile nature show consistency in that nature and a disgustingly effective way of avoiding consequences internationally for it. When polled about if we think we can trust Trump - whether it's to do the right thing, be diplomatic or even just trust him on a fundamental level - he fails miserably on all accounts because he has shown his moral bankruptcy, he has shown his inability to utilize diplomacy and he has shown an inability to be remotely consistent or trustworthy on even the most trivial of things. The most effective thing he could do to restore his trust and favor in the western public's eye is to, at the very least - stop his pity party rallies, get the fuck off twitter, use his speechwriters and respect the decades-long standards of office that prior presidencies did.
Yeah, the fact that we can freely express our opinion and demonstrate our beliefs without fear of 'disappearing' or dying of suicide by being shot twice in the head says a lot about the state of affairs politically in America compared to China and Russia. It's... just the truth.
I can comfortably type express and protest my thoughts towards the current administration and not show any fear over it.
It's not that kind of trust. It's more to do with their words vs their actions. Xi and Putin are assholes, but they generally follow their rhetoric. Trump can say one thing then literally hours later do something that completely undermines what he said.
Basically this.
You can get consistent responses from Putin or Xi. Trump is a walking random number generator, every time you check in he's got something different to say.
The only consistent thing with Trump is that he will fall in love with anyone who sucks up to him and flatters him, and if you don't suck his dick he'll treat you like garbage to be tossed on the floor.
I'd argue that Trump absolutely would send out a trained team to assassinate people if he could get away with it though.
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