China topped the U.S. by the largest margin in the past 20 years in a new Gallup global approval ratings report.
China’s median global approval rating – how other countries view the job performance of its leadership – rose to 36% in 2025, while the U.S. rating fell to 31%. This represents a 13% increase in China’s rating and a 21% decrease in the U.S. rating from 2024.
Before 2025, China had surpassed the U.S. in approval ratings twice in the past two decades: during George W. Bush’s administration and the first Trump administration. Global approval of Chinese leadership has remained well below the U.S. since 2020 – until 2025.
While China did improve in its global approval rating, the large margin when compared to the U.S. reflects a decline in the approval rating for the U.S.
“How your country is relating to these other countries definitely, I think, factors into how people are perceiving it,” says Julie Ray, managing editor for world news at Gallup.
Disapproval ratings for the U.S. also rose to a record-high 48% in 2025, the first year of President Donald Trump’s second administration. China’s disapproval rating in 2025 remained stagnant at 37%.
Though China is besting the U.S., this isn’t the lowest approval rating the nation has received. Since Gallup began recording 20 years ago, the lowest rating for the U.S. was 30% in the first and last years of Trump’s first term. The highest was 49% approval during Obama’s first term in 2009.
To gather this data, Gallup asked residents of every country included in its annual World Poll to rate the leadership of the four leading economic or military powers: the U.S., China, Russia and Germany. The survey does not define leadership, so it is up to the interpretation of the respondent to decide who or what constitutes a country’s leadership.
The latest results come from 2025 Gallup surveys conducted in more than 130 countries. Gallup notes that this data predates the U.S. withdrawal from 66 international organizations in January and the start of the Iran war in late February.
Germany maintained its standing as the major world power with the highest approval ratings, achieving 48% in 2025. Russia – almost always the lowest of the four – held its spot at the bottom and had a median global approval rating of 26%.
In 44 countries last year – especially NATO partners of the U.S. – approval of American leadership decreased by 10 points or more. Germany’s approval of U.S. leadership dropped the most by 39 points.
Unlike most other U.S. allies, Israel’s ratings of U.S. leadership rose by more than 10 points to 76% – the second highest of all countries. Ray points to Israel’s war with Hamas and says that the “situation on the ground definitely does matter to how people are viewing things and how they’re locally impacted.”
Notably, the global median of respondents who said they didn’t know or refused to answer the leadership approval question about the U.S. and China has continued to drop significantly, suggesting that more people have strong feelings about the two countries. “Maybe this reflects that Trump is more of a known quantity at this stage,” says Ray. She also says that China has increased in global visibility.
This new data is one more piece of information that people – particularly policymakers and business people – can use to inform their decisions, says Ray. It also shows people they aren’t necessarily alone in their views of the world.
“This gives a voice to some people who don’t get to be heard from a lot,” she says.