International embarrassment: Germany sees Trump as bigger threat than North Korea

Just as Donald Trump sparks international outrage and condemnation with a reckless maneuver in the Middle East this week, more and more longtime American allies around the world now see Trump as a threat and a problem, instead of a friend.

In fact, Germans now view Trump as a bigger threat than North Korea’s delusional dictator Kim Jong Un and Russia’s authoritarian bully, Vladimir Putin.

It’s all part of the larger, dangerous tarnishing of America image around the world that Trump is orchestrating, as the United States’ reputation plummets in the eyes of the international community.

For Germans, Trump now poses the second most important foreign policy concern, behind the country’s influx of refugees, according to a new Koerber Foundation poll. Citizens of Germany are more worried about Trump (19 percent) than they are North Korea (10 percent) and Russia (8 percent).

North Korea’s unstable leader has spent much of this year threatening to launch nuclear missiles, while Putin has invaded his neighbors. But compared to them, Germans see Trump as a bigger threat.

This, from a country that has been among America’s closes allies over the last half-century. But all of that has changed with Trump and his reckless behavior.

“Since entering the White House in January, Trump has unsettled Germans by pulling out of the Paris climate accord, refusing to certify an international agreement on Iran’s nuclear program and criticizing Germany’s trade surplus and its contributions to the NATO military alliance,” Reuters notes.

In the Koerber poll of more than one thousand Germans, 56 percent describe the relationship with the United States as bad or very bad.

People around the world simply do not trust and admire the U.S. the way they did before Trump was elected. Once considered the most respected nation in the world and boasting the best country “brand,” the U.S. recently fell all the way from No. 1 to No. 6 in the last year, according to the market research firm Gfk, which conducts the annual global survey.

Germany now touts the title as the world’s most respected nation.

And in the 2017 U.S. News Best Countries Rankings, the U.S. fell from the No. 4 Best Country to No. 7.

In just 10 months, Trump has done his best to demolish America’s reputation abroad.