The popularity of the United States around the world has been eclipsed by one of its major rivals, according to a poll.
The survey, which was conducted by the Pew Research Center found that more countries held a positive view of China compared to the U.S. The findings mark a shift from last year’s poll, which found global views of the U.S. were more positive than of China, despite declining during President’s Trump’s first year in office.
More than 42,000 people in 36 countries were polled by Pew between February and May. In 27 of those 36 countries (which included the West Bank/East Jerusalem), more people said that they held favorable views of China than they did of the U.S.
The U.S. led China by 10 percentage points or more in only six countries, including India, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, Poland and Israel. Meanwhile, some of the U.S.’s closest allies, including Canada, Germany and France, reported having a more favorable view of China than the U.S.
The United Kingdom, where successive leaders have lauded a “special relationship” with the U.S., saw a dramatic decline in the percentage of respondents who viewed the United States favorably.
Last year, that figure stood at 50 percent. Only 39 percent viewed China favorably.
However, according to the 2026 findings, the U.S.’s favorability rating in the U.K. plunged to just 41 percent. Meanwhile, 46 percent of British respondents said that they viewed China favorably.
The development comes after a year in which relations between the two countries came under strain, due to the Iran War and Trump’s imposition of tariffs on the country, amid Britain’s cost-of-living crisis.
Spain saw an even steeper decline in the number of people holding a favorable view of the U.S., with the figure plummeting from 55 percent in 2023 to just 30 percent in 2026.
“The last two years have just decimated the idea that the United States can be trusted as a reliable partner in anything,” Joshua Kurlantzick, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told The Washington Post. “China has aggressively stepped in to take advantage of that.”
Laura Silver, who co-authored the report, told the publication that global politics has coincided with the shift in views on China and the U.S.
Views on China have actually improved, she added, after it reached an “extremely negative” perception during the Covid-19 pandemic.
More countries also reported higher levels of confidence in Chinese President Xi Jinping than Trump. That list of countries included the U.K. and Spain, as well as Canada, Germany and Mexico.
The survey also found that more countries said that the United States respected the freedoms of its citizens than China, although that gap has narrowed since 2021.
In Sweden, the percentage of people who said that the U.S. respects the freedoms of its people crashed down to just 27 percent from 61 percent.
Drops of 25 percentage points were also recorded in South Korea, Italy, Canada, France, Germany and the Netherlands.
Chong Ja Ian, a non-resident scholar with Carnegie China, told the BBC that whether China is ‘absolutely popular” is an “open question,” though.
However, he did acknowledge that the country is a more “predictable entity at present” and that Beijing has been “working hard to burnish its image.”
