Americans wanting US to take lead in world affairs ticks down: Gallup

Fewer Americans want the U.S. to take the lead in world affairs than in previous decades, according to a new Gallup poll released on Friday.

Sixty-five percent said they think America should play a major or leading role in world affairs — marking a new low in the more than two decades that Gallup has posed the question. However, this falls just 1 point beneath the previous low in 2011, when support for international involvement briefly dropped to 66 percent.

The portion of Americans who feel the U.S. should play a leading, and not just a major role in world affairs, is still higher than it has been in previous years, with 20 percent saying as much. This number previously dropped into the teens in the mid-2000s and early 2010s.

Democrats are much more likely than their Republican counterparts to support the U.S. playing a substantial role in international affairs. While 75 percent of Democrats said America should have a leading or major role, 61 percent of Republicans said the same, the poll found.

This represents a reversal from the early 2000s, when Republicans were much more likely to support U.S. involvement in world affairs than Democrats. Republicans consistently backed the U.S. having a substantial role in world affairs about 10 percentage points more than Democrats until 2009.

The difference appears to come primarily on the Republican side, as the 75 percent of Democrats that said they support U.S. involvement is largely consistent with the party’s historical average. 

Under former President George W. Bush, an average of 84 percent of Republicans said they supported a major or leading role for the U.S. on the international stage. This declined to 73 percent under former Presidents Obama and Trump and now sits in at 61 percent under President Biden.

The shift is apparent in lawmakers’ responses to the war in Ukraine. House Republicans, in particular, have pushed to rein in the substantial amounts of military and humanitarian aid that the U.S. is sending to Kyiv, while Democrats and the Biden administration have frequently pushed for continuing or increased support.

Americans overall had a fairly negative view of the United States’ standing in the world, as well as of the amount of respect that Biden garners from other world leaders. Only 37 percent in the poll said they are satisfied with the position of America in the world today, the same portion that said Biden is well-respected.

However, Americans are almost equally split on whether the U.S. is viewed favorably or unfavorably by the rest of the world — 49 percent to 51 percent.

Gallup conducted its annual World Affairs survey from Feb. 1-23 with 1,008 adults responding. The margin of error was 4 percentage points.