Gallup: Only Israel, Three Other Countries Like Trump More Than Obama

Although Trump has been far from perfect so far as president, he’s a great upgrade from Obama. For instance, see Trump’s major tax cut bill and his other job-growth policies, and his appointment of conservative judges.

And that’s not all: he’s fulfilled his promise to restore relations with Israel.

Clearly, the only Jewish state and the only Mideast democracy is well aware of that fact:

A new poll shows that a wide swath of Israelis approves of United States President Donald Trump’s performance in his first year of office.

According to the Gallup poll, 67% of Israelis say they approve of the president.

Notably, this poll was conducted well before Trump announced his recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and before his threats to defund the terror-supporting UNRWA and the Palestinian Authority. Those moves are very popular in Israel and almost certainly have increased his popularity in that country.

Israelis had serious misgivings about Obama. Their approval rating of the 44th U.S. president never rose above 50 percent, which is historically low for an American president. In 2014, a poll showed that a full 71 percent of Israelis disapproved of Obama’s performance. A poll in 2015 showed that more than half of Israelis “didn’t trust” Obama.

However, this new Gallup poll also says that Israel is only one of four countries that approves of Trump more than they approved of Obama. The other three are Belarus (run by a despot), Liberia, and Macedonia. However, in June of last year, a poll showed that Russians also had a higher opinion of the United States under the Trump administration.

The reason that Belarus is more positive about Trump than about Obama is clearly the new president’s attitude towards Russia, which is Belarus’ big brother. The country’s current president, Alexander Lukashenko, was actually the only Belarus deputy to vote against its independence from the Soviet Union.

Macedonia is a Slavic country that had to struggle for its independence. It used to be part of the Ottoman Empire, and afterwards, of Yugoslavia. Some 65 percent of its inhabitants are followers of the Eastern Orthodox Church. This makes it likely that popular opinion of Trump is influenced by his relationship with Putin, and also his outspoken stance against Islamist extremism and mass immigration.

As for Liberia, it’s not clear why it’s the only African country where Trump is more popular than Obama — but we have to ask ourselves if that’s still the case after his remarks about “s***hole countries.” As one Liberian columnist wrote for the website All Africa:

The United States of America is unquestionably a very friendly country to most, if not all, African nations. There is a US embassy in most African capitals, and scores of African Heads of State and Government have been invited to the White House. And many US Presidents and Vice Presidents have visited Africa.

But all this may be a thing of the past, considering who currently occupies the Oval Office — President Donald Trump — who has gone out of his way to prove that he is a racist, a white supremacist and one who simply does not like people of color, especially the people of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.

In any case, even if Liberians turn against Trump, he can still count on Israel’s support — and rightfully so. Obama was a disaster for Israel. He routinely criticized the only democracy in the Middle East while simultaneously working to improve his relationship with some of the region’s most horrific Islamist dictators. Trump may not be America’s greatest diplomat of all time, but when it comes to Israel, he’s certainly a significant improvement over his predecessor.