Americans' approval rating of UN slides

A majority of Americans, or 60 percent, say the United Nations (UN) is doing a "poor job" in solving the problems it faces, up by six percentage points from 2016, found a latest Gallup poll.

In contrast, only 37 percent of Americans say the UN is doing a "good job" in solving the problems it faces, down by 1 percentage point from 2016, according to the Feb. 1-5 poll.

The poll comes as U.S. President Donald Trump plans to significantly reduce U.S. contributions to international organizations, including the UN.

Current Americans' approval rating of the UN is similar to what Gallup has measured since 2013 but above the 2009 low of 26 percent, Gallup noted.

Gallup first did the poll on the UN in 1953, when most Americans expressed positive views of the organization. Since then, Americans have become less positive in their views of the UN, Gallup said.

The UN only received majority job approval from Americans on a few occasions in the past decades. In addition to the 1953 poll, a majority of Americans viewed the U.N. positively in two polls bookending the Gulf War of the early 1990s and in three consecutive polls from 2000 to 2002.

However, the Americans' positive views of the UN soon plummeted amid disagreements between U.S. leadership and the UN over the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, according to Gallup.

Trump has echoed congressional Republicans' criticism of the UN as being ineffectual and financially mismanaged. Some lawmakers have proposed legislation to cut off funding to the organization, Gallup said.

Given Trump's recent critiques of the UN and Americans' long-standing low approval of the organization, it is unlikely that Americans' views of the UN will improve much in the near future, Gallup added.

source: Xinhua