For decades, one of the keys to Washington’s power has been its ability to use favorably inclined allies as force multipliers. Now, facing its first peer competitor in generations, Washington has been busily alienating pretty much everyone it can. This alienation can be measured, and the results are striking.
Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes surveys track favorable views of the United States and China across dozens of countries. In 2023, the United States still held a clear edge. A median of about 59% of respondents across surveyed nations viewed America favorably, compared with just 28% for China. By spring 2025 the gap had narrowed sharply (49% U.S. versus 37% China). By the spring 2026 survey—covering thirty-six countries—the reversal was unmistakable: China was viewed more favorably than the United States in twenty-five of them. Median favorable views of China sat around 51%; America’s had fallen further.
The pattern is especially vivid among traditional U.S. partners and neighbors. In Canada, favorable views of the United States dropped from 57% in 2023 to 33% in 2026, while China’s rose from 14% to 44%. Mexico moved from a narrow U.S. edge (63%–57%) to a decisive Chinese one (40%–59%). In Brazil, once solidly tilted toward Washington, the two countries are now roughly even.
Europe tells a similar story. In the United Kingdom, a roughly 32-point American advantage in 2023 had evaporated by 2026, with China slightly ahead (46% to 41%). Italy swung from a strong U.S. preference (around 60% versus the low-to-mid 30s for China) to China leading at 51% against 31% for the United States—the highest Chinese favorability Pew has recorded there in nearly two decades. Germany and France followed the same trajectory: large American advantages in 2023 collapsed into Chinese leads or near-ties by 2026.
In the Indo-Pacific the picture is more mixed but still revealing. Japan and South Korea continue to prefer the United States by comfortable margins, as does the Philippines – three of the six countries in the 2026 survey where America still leads. Yet even here U.S. numbers have softened. Indonesia, by contrast, shows a decisive shift: China was already popular in 2023 and has pulled further ahead as American favorability declined. Turkey has long rated China more highly; recent data only reinforce that preference.
These are not abstract polling curiosities. They measure the soft-power foundation of American primacy. Washington’s postwar order rested on the assumption that key capitals would treat American leadership as, if not always welcome, at least preferable to the alternatives. That assumption is eroding fastest precisely where it once seemed safest—among rich democracies and immediate neighbors. Younger respondents in many of these countries, including the United States, are especially inclined to view China more positively, suggesting the shift may have staying power.
The strategic irony is rich. Official Washington remains obsessed with “containing” China. Strategy documents, congressional hearings, and think-tank papers overflow with language about alliances, partnerships, and the necessity of preventing Beijing from rewriting the rules. Yet the practical effect of its policies—wild wars, tariffs that hit allies as well as rivals, demands for defense-spending increases framed as ultimatums, rhetorical escalations, and a foreign-policy style that treats friends as perpetual debtors—has been to make the United States look less reliable and China relatively more so. In middle-income countries in particular, publics increasingly see China as the more reliable partner and the United States as the greater interferer in other nations’ affairs.
This is classic government work—and for seasoned observers the own-goal feeling will be a familiar one. For roughly thirty years, American Middle East policy was sold as a project to weaken Iran and isolate its influence: the cumulative result was a stronger Iran, a more chaotic region, and a series of expensive American failures. The China portfolio is following a parallel script. The more Washington insists on primacy and demands that others pay the costs of maintaining it, the more those others begin to hedge—or simply prefer the competitor that asks less and offers more commercial opportunity.
None of this means China is about to replace the United States as a global hegemon, or that Beijing’s own governance model is suddenly attractive on its merits. It does mean that the force-multiplier advantage America once enjoyed is shrinking at the precise moment Washington policymakers claim to need it most. Allies are not obligated to underwrite someone else’s empire, especially when the imperial center seems determined to make the arrangement as unpleasant as possible.
Libertarians have long argued that overextended empires eventually trip over their own ambitions. The Pew numbers offer a real-time illustration. Washington set out to contain China and, through a combination of arrogance, protectionism, and diplomatic tone-deafness, has instead helped improve China’s relative standing in the eyes of much of the world. It is the sort of outcome that would be impressive if it were intentional. Unfortunately for the strategists, it appears to be pure accident: the predictable byproduct of a foreign policy that mistakes coercion for leadership and alienates the very partners it claims are indispensable.
