Negative views of Donald Trump – and of the United States under his leadership – have risen further in Poland over the last year, according to new findings from the Pew Research Centre.

Only 29% of Poles now say they have confidence in the US president to do the right thing regarding world affairs, down from 35% last year and 75% in 2024, when Joe Biden was in the White House.

Pew also found that, for the first time, less than half of Poles (49%) say they have a favourable view of the US, down from 55% last year and a peak of 93% in 2023 under Biden.

In its latest annual study of global attitudes towards the US, Pew conducted surveys in 36 countries. It found increasing negative views in almost all of them, including Poland, which has long been one of the most pro-American countries in Europe.

A majority of Poles (57%) still say they see the US as a reliable partner. That is down from 85% in 2022, though still higher than in other European countries such as France (27%, down from 62%), Germany (39%, down from 83%), and the UK (49%, down from 82%).

Pew’s study found that, while only 29% of Poles have confidence in Trump’s leadership, 47% say they do for French President Emmanuel Macron and 46% for Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky.

The data were, however, collected in February and March, before the Ukrainian president caused widespread anger in Poland by naming a military unit after a group that massacred Poles during World War Two.

Poles are also more critical of US domestic policies than in the past, with only 49% now saying that the American government respects the personal freedoms of its own people. That is down from 79% in 2008, when Pew first asked the question. Before this year, the figure had never been lower than 67%.

Asked about Trump’s policies in particular, minorities of Poles say they approve of how he has dealt with immigration (37%), tariffs (21%), the war between Ukraine and Russia (24%), and Iran (21%).

Pew’s findings echo other recent polls in Poland showing declining trust in Trump’s leadership. In February, a survey by the SW Research agency for Rzeczpospolita showed that 53% of Poles no longer regard the US as a reliable ally, while only 30% think that it is.

A poll by state research agency CBOS published the same month showed that Trump was the third most distrusted world leader among Poles, behind only Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Belarus’s Alexander Lukashenko.

Poland’s current government – a coalition ranging from left to centre right – has emphasised the importance of the US as Poland’s main security partner but also occasionally clashed with the Trump administration.

In January, Prime Minister Donald Tusk joined other European leaders in issuing a joint statement calling on the US to respect Greenland’s sovereignty.

The following month, Tusk declared that Poland would never be a “vassal” of the United States. In May, he criticised Washington’s “outrageous” decision to grant a visa to Zbigniew Ziobro, a conservative former Polish justice minister who has fled criminal charges in his homeland.

The speaker of parliament, Włodzimierz Czarzasty, has this year twice clashed with the US ambassador over his criticism of Trump, whom Czarzasty called “irrational” and a “leader of chaos”.

By contrast, President Karol Nawrocki, who is aligned with the right-wing opposition, is a close ally of Trump. Earlier this month, he attended the celebration of the US president’s 80th birthday, including the mixed martial arts fights held in the White House garden.

While Nawrocki and Tusk’s government are constantly in conflict with one another, they have sought to present a more united front on security issues, including the relationship with the US. Both are seeking to boost the US military presence in Poland.

Last month, the US caused panic in Warsaw after cancelling a rotational deployment of around 4,000 troops to Poland. Soon after, Trump pledged that he would in fact send an additional 5,000 military personnel to Poland. However, no further details of the deployment have since been announced.

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Image and video credit: White House (under CC BY 3.0 US)