What the 2026 survey found
Pew Research Center surveyed 42,151 adults in 36 countries between 8 February and 13 May 2026.
- The US overall: a median of 37% favorable and 57% unfavorable across the 36 countries.
- The most favorable: Israel, at 81%.
- The least favorable: in Turkey and in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, about eight in ten were unfavorable.
- Confidence in the president: a median of 23% had confidence in Donald Trump to do the right thing in world affairs.
Sources: Pew Research Center, 23 June 2026 · Pew, views of world leaders. Pew's 2025 survey covered a different set of 24 countries, so its median is not directly comparable.
Opinion, coverage and attention
A poll tells you what people think. News coverage tells you what they are being told. Search tells you a third thing: what they are curious about right now. The same US decision on tariffs, aid or a war can lead searches in one country and barely register in another. Seeing where a US topic is being looked up is a quick way to see who feels it.
How to see it day to day
Whyworld is built around that third signal. When a US topic is among the day’s biggest, it shows the countries where people are searching it on a world map, with a short note on why it is trending and links to the reporting.
- What the world is searching: Whyworld reads public search trends from many countries and builds one list of the day’s biggest topics.
- Why it is trending: each topic gets a short, plain note on why people are looking it up.
- Where: a world map and a country list show where each topic is being searched.
- Sources: every topic links to the reporting behind it, and a Report an error button sits on every topic.
- Two briefs a day: a morning brief at the hour you pick, an evening brief, and an alert when a new topic enters the top 10.
An AI editor picks and explains the topics, and Whyworld says so. Trend data comes from public sources such as Google Trends, Baidu Hot Search and the GDELT Project.
Reading foreign coverage well
- Check who is speaking: a state broadcaster and a private newspaper in the same country can disagree.
- Compare framing, not just facts: what leads the headline, and what is left out.
- Go to the source: a translated headline is a starting point, not the full story.