Canadians’ views of U.S. leadership have turned increasingly negative since President Donald Trump returned to office, a new poll from Gallup found.
Approval of Washington dropped to 15 percent — its lowest since Trump’s first term — with nearly four in five Canadians disapproving of U.S. leadership’s job performance.
That exceeds disapproval ratings for Chinese leadership, with 64 percent of Canadians expressing disapproval of Beijing.
The drop in support for the U.S. government comes as Trump has engaged in a protracted battle with America’s northern neighbor, hitting Canada with steep import tariffs and floating the idea of annexing the country, a proposal that sparked fierce backlash among Canadian citizens and leadership.
Less than half of Canadians have generally approved of U.S. leadership since 2017. But Canadians warmed to Washington under the Biden administration, with U.S. leadership briefly receiving a net-positive approval rating in 2021.
At the same time, Canadians’ approval of their own leadership rose nearly 20 percentage points from last year, with nearly 60 percent of Canadians approving of the country’s leaders following Prime Minister Mark Carney’s April election win.
Carney has taken a more conciliatory approach to the Trump administration, privately courting Trump in his attempts to secure a trade truce even as he has publicly pushed back on the White House’s aggressive stance toward Canada.
The poll was conducted by telephone from May 20-June 30, 2025 with a random sample of approximately 1,014 Canadian adults. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.
