“From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land,” President Donald Trump declared in his inaugural address in January 2017. “From this moment on, it’s going to be America First.” An insular, populist nationalism, coupled with an antipathy toward globalist ideas and institutions, became the central theme and the clarion call of both his terms in the White House.
President Trump has spent considerable energy lambasting the United Nations, an institution the United States helped create 80 years ago and has shaped ever since. He has derided it as an “unelected, unaccountable, global bureaucracy,” and little more than “a talking shop.”
A majority of Americans no longer agree with their president. In a Sept. 2025 global poll commissioned by The Rockefeller Foundation, 61% of American respondents agreed that their country should cooperate with others to solve global challenges, even if doing so meant compromising on some national interests. Only 16% responded with a no. Such American support for international cooperation has only increased. When the same question was posed in the 2026 iteration of the poll, which surveyed more than 35,000 people across 34 countries, support in the U.S. rose by four percentage points to 65%, while the opposition fell by two percentage points to 14%.
American public support for multilateral cooperation in 2026 exceeds that of Western Europe, where it stands at 61%. Despite President Trump’s attacks on the UN, 62% of Americans say they trust the institution—eight percentage points more than last year—while only 30% claim to distrust it. Nearly half of American respondents, 46%, say they comfortable with the UN playing a leading role on the world stage. Only 21% say they are uncomfortable.
As global stability has eroded and peace has grown increasingly fragile, the desire for cooperation across border has increased among Americans. In the same poll, respondents were asked to choose three priorities from a list of 13 global issues: among American respondents, 40% ranked preventing wars and conflicts among their most pressing concerns.
The message to President Trump is clear. For most of the last 80 years, America has acted multilaterally, even during its unipolar moment. Americans do not want the U.S. to act unilaterally in an increasingly multipolar era. They want their country to practice the politics of consensus building rather than coercion.
A new call for international cooperation
I joined an initiative involving 100 former prime ministers and presidents from every continent that calls upon today’s leaders to build a stronger basis for cooperation in an increasingly fragmented and multipolar world. On Monday, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, many of us came together to endorse core principles that could provide the basis for a new global consensus on solving shared problems and helping those in need.
As the poll commissioned by the Rockefeller Foundation found, more than half of American respondents, 53%, would support their president publicly endorsing these principles of cooperation. This finding suggests that America is not a nation committed to an “America first and America only” ideology, but a nation with a strong sense of the enduring values that bind it to the wider world.
Yet as American support for cooperation with the rest of the world rises, the inclination across the rest of the world to cooperate with America hangs in the balance. For decades, people everywhere have looked to America for hope and inspiration. That faith is now being questioned.
America’s appeal as global leader, the same poll found, has diminished. Only 39% of the respondents worldwide are comfortable with the U.S. playing a leading role on the world stage. And 34% of the respondents across the globe regard the U.S. as a major threat to their own countries. On that grim metric, Russia scored even higher, at higher 42%. China, surprisingly, fared better at 30%.
When respondents to the 2026 poll were asked which countries they would be comfortable seeing take a leading role in world affairs, America ranked in the bottom half of the table. Canada outpolled America, with 60% of the respondents globally comfortable with it playing such a role, the highest vote recorded for any country.
Several middle powers were viewed more favorably by respondents as potential global leaders: Japan (58%), Australia (55%), the United Kingdom (54%), Germany, Spain, and Italy (all 53%), France (51%) and South Korea (42%).
While none of these countries comes remotely close to matching American economic and military power, America’s soft power has certainly suffered in recent years. It is estimated that 900 million people want to live somewhere other than their own country.
Surveys asking people which country they would prefer to live in have consistently put America in the lead. According to Gallup data, 24% of respondents in 2009 named America as their preferred new home. By 2025, that preference had shrunk to a mere 15%.
Renewing American leadership
America can still regain its soft power. Americans have not lost their optimism or their sense of belief in a better future. In the 2026 poll, 55% of American respondents professed that, during a crisis, their own community would pull together. An even more decisive majority, 64%, believe that, as Americans they share a responsibility to help others, even in countries they don’t know. And 76% of American respondents believe it is possible to build a better future for the next generation.
Americans need to convey these convictions more clearly and widely. Under pressure from an affordability crisis at home and military overreach abroad, Americans may not any longer be prepared to “bear any burden or pay any price.”
But the values that underpin America are still embraced by a majority of its people. This suggests that America still has what it takes to resume the global leadership that is needed more than ever in our turbulent world.
![“Experts” Predict Black Monday For Global Markets! [Here’s The Truth]](https://wordupnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/1790163801_maxresdefault-80x80.jpg)
You must be logged in to post a comment Login