As the United States Prepares for Its 250th Independence Anniversary, European Views on Trump and America Stay Critical

The United States is preparing to celebrate 250 years of independence on 4 July, but across the Atlantic, Europeans appear less enthusiastic about the country and its President, Donald Trump.

According to a recent Pew Research Centre study, more than eight in ten citizens in Sweden, the Netherlands, France, Germany, and Italy lack confidence that Trump will act responsibly on global affairs.

Trump’s approval ratings have fallen sharply in eight European countries since 2025, with drops of 15 percentage points in Greece and Italy.

Generally, the U.S. president is more popular among Europeans who hold favorable views of right‑wing populist parties, yet even their confidence in him has declined.

For example, support for Trump among Greek voters of the Greek Solution party fell 29 percentage points between 2025 and 2026.

In Italy, 49 % of those who view the Brothers of Italy positively trusted Trump in 2025, versus only 30 % this year.

Do Europeans Believe the U.S. Represents Their Interests?

A median of 85 % of respondents in France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom disapproved of how the U.S. president is handling Greenland and tariffs.

Since 2025, Trump has repeatedly expressed a desire to acquire the Danish autonomous territory of Greenland for national security reasons. In early 2026, he escalated the issue by threatening military action and a tax on goods from European countries unless Denmark surrendered control, leading to a diplomatic crisis.

The president has since moderated his rhetoric on Greenland but continues to threaten Europe with tariffs, most recently targeting any nation that imposes a digital services tax on American technology giants.

European respondents also largely disapprove of Trump’s approach to the wars in Ukraine and Iran; 78 % across the ten surveyed countries expressed dissatisfaction.

Reliability perceptions of the U.S. have also deteriorated. Only Hungary and Poland report a majority believe the U.S. is a dependable partner, with Hungarians more inclined to hold this view than during the 2022 Pew survey under the Biden administration.

In the remaining eight countries, the percentage of people who view the U.S. as reliable has fallen by 28 to 52 percentage points since 2022.

Europeans are increasingly doubtful that U.S. foreign policy takes other nations’ interests into account, with significant declines in Germany and the UK.

Between 2022 and 2026, this viewpoint halved in the UK, Germany, Poland, Spain, and France.

The study noted, “In countries where we have queried this issue repeatedly over the years, attitudes resemble the early and mid‑2000s, another era of trans‑Atlantic tensions stemming from a Middle East war and related concerns.”

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