An alleged manhandling of the Coronavirus pandemic has led to a decline in European public perception of the United States as a global leader, extensive new polling reveals.
More than 60% of respondents in Germany, France, Spain, Denmark and Portugal said they had lost trust in the United States as a global leader.
Most respondents in every country surveyed said their perception of the US had deteriorated since the outbreak.
Negative attitudes of the US were most marked in Denmark (71%) Portugal (70%), France (68%), Germany (65%) and Spain (64%). In France, 46% and in Germany 42% said their view of the US had worsened “a lot” during the pandemic.
In an analysis of the data, the policy experts Susi Dennison and Pawel Zerka say that trust in the US is “broken” as a result of its handling of the health crisis and that support for the transatlantic alliance has been “hollowed out”‘.
The report states: “Europeans’ trust in the US is gone. Many have been appalled by the [US’s] chaotic response to Covid-19; the lack of solidarity it showed with Europeans in the 12 March closure of its border to members of the Schengen area; and its lack of leadership in tackling the coronavirus crisis at the global level – or even engagement with the issue (beyond a war of words with the World Health Organization).”
The survey was commissioned by the Berlin-based European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) thinktank and conducted by Datapraxis and YouGov at the end of April and the first week of May, across nine EU countries which together account for two-thirds of the bloc’s population.
So low is confidence in the future of the transatlantic partnership that only 2% of respondents in Germany and 3% in France said they would expect US support as Europe rebuilds its damaged economy.
