More Canadians trust China under Xi Jinping than Donald Trump’s America: Pew poll

OTTAWA — As President Donald Trump’s administration continues to erode allies’ trust, a new poll suggests the number of Canadians who hold a favourable view of China now outnumbers those who say the same of the United States.

Recent polling by the Pew Research Center found Trump receiving mostly negative ratings from countries around the world.

On Wednesday, the agency released new polling that shows two in five Canadian respondents held a favourable view of China, while just one in three said the same about the U.S.

Pew polled 1,020 Canadians by phone between mid-February and mid-April, not long after Prime Minister Mark Carney’s visit to Beijing in January.

Canadian public opinion on the U.S. has shifted substantially. A similar Pew poll in 2025 reported the number of Canadians expressing approval of China was roughly equal to the number saying they approve of the United States. A 2023 Pew poll said China was viewed positively by just 14 per cent of Canadians, while 57 per cent reported positive views of the U.S.

The agency tracked the same trend in multiple countries, with China overtaking the U.S. in favourability among those surveyed in Mexico, Spain, Indonesia, the U.K. and Argentina.

Trump is pursuing a trade war with Canada and has repeatedly spoken of annexing the country. Earlier this month, his administration delayed the opening of the Gordie Howe International Bridge connecting Ontario to Michigan — a bridge Canada paid to build.

In January, during his visit to Beijing, Carney said while Canada has much deeper ties with the U.S. than with China, “in terms of the way that our relationship has progressed in recent months with China, it is more — it is more predictable.”

Only 35 per cent of Canadians told Pew they would trust Chinese President Xi Jinping to do the right thing, however that is nearly double the 20 per cent who said the same of Trump.

Pew also has tracked a steep drop in the percentage of Canadians who say the U.S. government respects personal freedoms — from 60 per cent in 2021 to just 34 per cent in 2026. Pew reported Canadians were also tepid about Beijing, with 13 per cent saying China respects personal freedoms, up from 7 per cent in 2021.

The Canadian polling was conducted through Langer Research Associates and involved random-digit dialing with demographic weighting, resulting in a margin of error of 3.5 per cent.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 15, 2026.

Dylan Robertson, The Canadian Press