USA and Donald Trump: Trust of Germans in America crashes

Donald Trump’s election as President of the US has already left traces in German-American relationship. At the beginning of 2025, only eleven percent of Germans still see an alliance partner with the same values ​​in the United States. In the previous year it was still 20 percent.

In the United States, on the other hand, the proportion of those who see Germany as Allies even increased slightly to 36 percent after Donald Trump’s election victory. This emerges from a new survey by the IPSOS survey institute in both countries on behalf of the “progressive center”.

But that does not mean that people speak for the opposition of both nations, as Donald Trump repeatedly indicated. The US President said: “The European Union was created to rip off the United States.” From Germany, ex-Foreign Minister Sigma Gabriel (SPD) warns: “Trump wants to destroy Europe.”

Only eleven percent of Germans and even six percent of the Americans see each other as rivals or even opponents, as apparently the new US president does. According to the survey, two thirds of the Germans continue to consider the USA as a necessary partner in the world at the beginning of the year. In the USA, too, a little more than a third of people see the need to cooperate.

A narrow majority of the Americans are also behind the “America First” policy of the US President. 55 percent there believe that it is good for the development of the country. Significantly more Americans than in the previous year also look positively into the economic future. Almost half hopes to improve. This distinguishes them from the Germans, who are still extremely pessimistic. Two out of three respondents (66 percent) look at the economic development of their own region.

Despite these differences and despite the majority for Trump’s “America First” doctrine, people on both sides of the Atlantic want an ambitious climate policy. In the United States, a narrow majority for “massive investments” into the conversion to a green economy. 71 percent of the Americans also say that the government is doing as much as necessary or too little in the area (48 percent). This is in contradiction to announcements by the new US president to massively expand fossil energies.

The support for green management is even slightly higher in the United States than in this country. In Germany, 64 percent of the respondents consider the previous government’s climate course to be correct or even too little. 47 percent in Germany are in favor of massive investments in the green economy, 39 percent are against it.

Florian Ranft, head of the study at the progressive center, sees the broad support of the population for a green economic and climate policy: “‘America First’ or ‘Economy First’ does not mean ‘Climate Second’. Rather, the data shows that more people see a chance to secure competitiveness as a location disadvantage,” said Ranfen this star.

For the study entitled “No Backlash, No Retreat”, 1,500 people from the USA and Germany were asked. For the first time in early 2024 and the second time after the traffic lights have broken down and the election of Donald Trump over the turn of 2024/205.