Before her last visit as Chancellor to Washington, there was great confidence in Angela Merkel and her foreign policy around the world.

That is the result of a study by the renowned Pew Institute in Washington in 17 countries.

Accordingly, an average of 77 percent of those surveyed said they had confidence that Merkel was doing the right thing in international affairs.

This means that trust in Merkel in these countries is higher than that in American President Joe Biden, who only achieved 74 percent approval.

In Germany, three quarters (76 percent) of respondents said they had confidence in Merkel's foreign policy work - among Americans only 60 percent of Biden said that.

Oliver Georgi

Deputy Editor in Charge of News and Politics Online.

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The Dutch and Swedes in Europe have even more confidence in Merkel's foreign policy than the Germans (90 percent approval each), followed by the Spaniards (86 percent), the Belgians (83 percent) and the French (82 percent).

In Italy (74 percent) and the United Kingdom (72 percent), too, a large majority of respondents trust Merkel's foreign policy - the situation is very different in Greece: with only 30 percent approval, trust in Merkel is many times weaker than there in the other countries.

In Germany, the assessment is more divided

What is also noticeable: In ten out of 14 countries where longer-term data were available, trust in Merkel has increased significantly since the last survey and is now at a record level.

Trust in the Chancellor in Italy has increased by 24 points to 74 percent since the summer of 2020.

According to the study, confidence in Merkel's foreign policy also grew in Spain (plus 14 percentage points), Greece (plus eight), South Korea and Japan (plus six each) and Sweden (plus three percent).

In the United States, around six in ten Americans (63 percent) said they had confidence in Merkel's foreign policy - although approval depends on party preference.

Among Democrats and their loved ones, 76 percent said that; among Republicans and Republican-minded people, it was just 49 percent.

Most of the respondents rated Merkel's handling of the corona pandemic in Germany as positive. In the study, an average of 61 percent said Germany had dealt with the pandemic well - this is the highest rating of all countries and organizations, including the United States, China and the EU. In Germany, however, the assessment is more divided: only 51 percent of those surveyed praise Merkel's pandemic management, 49 percent describe it as bad.

The proportion of Germans who see the United States as Germany's most important international political partner has meanwhile increased significantly.

While only ten percent of the Germans surveyed answered yes to the question in a Pew study from September 2020, this number has more than doubled after Joe Biden's election - to 23 percent.

Outside the United States, the Pew survey of 16,254 adults by phone in Canada, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan between March 12 and May 26 , New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan collected.

A total of 2,596 adults were surveyed in the United States from February 1-7.