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Confidence in world leaders
About the author
Ryan Neelam
Ryan Neelam was Director of the Public Opinion and Foreign Policy Program at the Lowy Institute. He led the flagship annual Lowy Institute Poll, was project director for the Global Diplomacy Index, and wrote about climate diplomacy and multilateral policy.
Donald Trump was re-elected as US president and commenced his second term in January. In line with low levels of trust in the United States, only 25% of Australians say they have ‘a lot’ of or ‘some’ confidence in Donald Trump to do the right thing in world affairs. This equals Trump’s lowest reading in 2019, during his first term.
Confidence in Chinese President Xi Jinping (16%) has risen by four points, accompanying the slow moderation of distrust in China (page 6). Once again, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (4%) garners the least confidence from Australians, while Russian President Vladimir Putin follows closely behind (8%).
Indonesia’s new president, Prabowo Subianto (28%), commenced his term five points below his predecessor, Joko Widodo, while Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (35%) remained steady on last year.
New Zealand is now led by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon (63%) who, like his two predecessors, elicits the most confidence from Australians of any leader on this list. In fact, Australians had more confidence in Mr Luxon than in either Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (60%) or then Opposition leader Peter Dutton (41%) prior to the federal election.
French President Emmanuel Macron also garners strong confidence (61%), as does Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba (60%).
