Donald Trump’s world views make world ‘less safe’: Poll

Survey in six US-allied countries show 78 percent of all respondents “dislike” or “hate” the Republican candidate.

Germany - Trump
A figure depicting Donald Trump was displayed at an event in Germany last February [Federico Gambarini/EPA]

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is making the world less safe, and his policies are causing people to view America negatively, according to a global survey in six countries allied with the US.

A poll published on Thursday showed that an average of 78 percent of the people from all those countries “dislike” or “hate” the billionaire businessman from New York.

The market research group YouGov conducted the survey in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Mexico, Canada and Japan, for the activist network Avaaz.     


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In the six countries combined, 78 percent of respondents said Trump’s world views make the world “less safe”.

In Mexico, the southern neighbour of the US, as high as 90 percent of the population “dislike” or “hate” Trump, while 75 percent think his views could make a Paris-style attack “more likely”.

Trump, who reportedly secured enough delegates on Thursday to become the Republican nominee, has made immigration a centrepiece of his campaign.

He has repeatedly railed against Mexican immigrants, calling them rapists and drug traffickers, and has vowed to deport them if elected president.

Trump has also said Muslims should be banned from entering the United States. 


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In Canada, 71 percent of the survey respondents said that Trump’s politics have a “negative effect” on their views towards America, while 66 percent said he is bad for the global economy.

Avaaz said that the perception of Trump “is resoundingly negative and amazingly consistent” with results varying very little by country or age.

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“Most of the world agrees with most Americans – The Donald is dangerously dumb,” Ricken Patel, chief executive of Avaaz, said in a press statement.

“A dream for ISIS and a nightmare for the rest of us,” he added, referring to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group.

In the United Kingdom, which Trump plans to visit before the election in November, 75 percent of the respondents said they “dislike” or “hate” his politics, and 38 percent feel “sick to their stomach” about Trump.

The survey had a sample size of 8,265 adults, who said they are familiar with Trump’s political views.

The poll comes a day after President Barack Obama, who is visiting Japan for the G7 summit, said world leaders are “rattled” by Trump “for good reason”.

“They are not sure how seriously to take some of his pronouncements but they’re rattled by him – and for good reason, because a lot of the proposals that he’s made display either ignorance of world affairs or a cavalier attitude,” Obama added.

Source: Al Jazeera