Gallup’s latest global approval ratings — based on surveys across more than 130 countries and regions in 2025 — show that China has surpassed the United States by the largest margin in two decades. China’s median approval rose to 36 percent, while the US’ fell to 31 percent.

Why? Let’s roll the tape. The US administration is pulling out of dozens of international organizations. It has exited the Paris climate treaty, applied tariffs on different economies, treated the conflicts in the Middle East and the Ukraine crisis as tools to strengthen its own “security” and make economic gains, and wielded coercive tariffs as a means to acquire unfair advantages.

The US administration has threatened to “acquire” Greenland by force. It changed the dynamics in Venezuela by forcibly seizing its leader and his wife. In Gaza, it has emboldened its ally to maximize its gains at huge humanitarian costs. The Gallup poll notes that the survey predates the Iran war in late February — meaning worse might still be to come.

No wonder, even NATO allies are giving the US the side-eye. The German people’s approval of the US dropped markedly. The only place that likes the US more is Israel, because, as Gallup notes, the situation on the ground matters.

Here is the cold reality that the transactional approach refuses to grasp. Unilateralism, coercion and zero-sum bargaining are not merely inadequate responses to global crises — they have become engines of those crises. Climate change does not respect tariffs. The global governance of artificial intelligence cannot be built through threats. Pandemic prevention is not served by leaving the World Health Organization.

The US administration behaves as though globalization is discretionary. The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development have all documented this repeatedly: international trade accounts for more than 60 percent of the global GDP. Supply chains have been forged as they are the best way to do business. “Decoupling” is a political slogan, not an economic stimulator.

Meanwhile, China’s initiatives for promoting global development, strengthening global security, enhancing civilizational understanding and exchanges, and improving global governance, recognize a reality Washington refuses to admit: that major countries must shoulder global responsibilities, that zero-sum thinking belongs to a bygone era, and that the world’s common challenges require common solutions based on actions and results. The UN-centered rules-based order, which came about at huge cost to the world, is the only lifeboat we have in a world sinking into turmoil.

That’s why China is committed to upholding the UN-centered system and providing global public goods to the international community, especially the Global South, to instill certainty into a volatile world.

Yet many pundits in Washington remain trapped in a post-Cold War time warp, unable to see that the new model of development demands a community with a shared future for humanity — one where inclusiveness, diversity and equity are not optional extras but survival necessities. Without them, we cannot cope with climate change, high-tech governance or the next “black swan” event.

The Gallup numbers are a wake-up call. They reflect the world’s views on Washington’s rejection of responsibility. If it continues to put narrow self-interest above the global good and treats international politics as a zero-sum game, it will only alienate the US further in the eyes of sensible minds around the world.