Berlin: Thirty-two per cent of Europeans no longer believed that Americans can be trusted after electing Donald Trump as President in 2016, according to a pan-European survey of over 15,000 people in 11 countries.
In Germany, 53 per cent of respondents said that they strongly agreed that Americans can no longer be trusted after the 2016 election, the think tank European Council on Foreign Relations found in the survey, Xinhau news agency reported.
The poll also found 36 per cent of Swedish respondents did not believe Americans were trustworthy after 2016.
In addition, a total of 61 percent of respondents believed that the US political system was “completely” or “somewhat” broken. Specifically, 81 per cent of British, 71 per cent of German and 66 per cent of French respondents thought so.
Poland and Hungary were the two countries with the most positive views of the US, with 56 per cent of Hungarians and 58 per cent of Poles saying the American political system works well or somewhat well, and only 23 per cent of Poles and 19 per cent of Hungarians did not trust Americans after voting for Donald Trump in 2016.
Most Europeans rejoiced at Joe Biden’s victory in the November US Presidential election, but they did not think he could help America make a comeback as a pre-eminent global leader.
Respondents evaluated the European Union and/or their own countries’ systems much more positively than that of the US and looked to Berlin rather than Washington as the most important partner.
IANS
