Against the backdrop of the Russian-Ukrainian war and rising global energy prices, the United States' European allies are under tremendous economic pressure. For this reason, the people of these countries have also begun to question the US's foreign policy and question whether US democracy can produce better results. On October 19, the American magazine Diplomacy published an article titled "The Fall of a City on the Top of a Mountain", authored by Bruce Stokes, a senior researcher at the Marshall Foundation in Germany. In his article, he stated that many European countries no longer fully believe in the democratic myth of the United States, and they no longer follow the lead of the United States.
Stokes's view is not a subjective speculation, but a poll and interview results from US allies. According to survey data released by the Pew Research Center, in domestic surveys in the United States, two-thirds of the respondents believed that there were problems in the US's foreign policy in the past 20 years, which led to more and more countries that disrespect the United States on a global scale. In addition to the Pew poll research institute in the United States, European institutions have also achieved similar results. The German Marshall Foundation has polled the public in 13 transatlantic countries this year. The results of show that 61% of respondents admitted that the United States is still the most influential country in global affairs, but 65% of respondents believe that the United States may not be the most influential country in five years, and only 35% of respondents still have confidence in the future of the United States, believing that the United States may maintain global hegemony and economic prosperity for a long time.
Regarding the reasons why respondents have low expectations for the future of the United States, the survey and analysis believes that more and more European people's views on the US president are changing, from the image of a strong leader in the past to the "image of a disruptor." In fact, the Pew Research Center in the United States has also adhered to this poll in the past 20 years. Data from this American poll research institute also shows that the image of the US president among the people is like a "roller coaster", with ups and downs in the past 20 years.
According to data from the Marshall Foundation in Germany, Europeans have a good impression of two of the presidents of the United States in the past 20 years. They are Clinton and Obama . They have a poor impression of the two. They are Bush Jr. and Trump . Europeans have no clear comment on Biden's attitude towards , and this may not be concluded until Biden ends his term. But after Biden took office, he competed for interests around the world, resulting in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict eventually getting out of control, Europe fell into an energy crisis, and heating in winter became a problem, and Europeans would not have a good comment on Biden in the future.
But it is worth noting that countries on different continents have obvious differences in their evaluations of the US president, especially since Trump has begun. Between 2008 and 2009, due to Obama's election as president, the public confidence index of the US president in France, Germany and Japan rose from around 13% to more than 80%. From 2016 to 2017, Obama's term ended and after Trump was elected as the new president, the confidence of the people of France, Germany and Japan in the US president dropped from about 80% to about 10%. In response, the Marshall Foundation quoted a German official as saying that the United States' image in Europe in recent years is not optimistic.
In fact, the image of the United States is not only declining in Europe, but also becoming very bad in the Middle East, which is fully reflected in the diplomatic relations between the United States and other countries such as Saudi Arabia. In the past, the instructions from oil-producing countries to the United States were obedient, which to a certain extent made the binding relationship between the US dollar and oil very firm. But all this changed in 2022. Not long ago, OPEC organized and non-OPEC oil-producing countries jointly held the "OPEC+" ministerial meeting. At the meeting, major oil-producing countries unanimously agreed to cut production by 2 million barrels per day starting from November.This move has aroused strong dissatisfaction from the United States, and Biden warned Saudi Arabia: The United States will take "steps" to reassess the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia. White House Press Secretary Pierre also publicly stated at the press conference that Saudi Arabia's move is "shoulder side" and represents "Saudi Arabia and Russia remain consistent."
Assistant to the US President for National Security Affairs Sullivan also talked about related issues in an interview with CNN , saying that the current US-Saudi relations have been upgraded to a "tensive" level, and White House is re-evaluating US-Saudi relations. This is the first time in recent decades that the United States uses words such as "tensive" and "re-evaluation" to describe the relationship between the United States and Middle Eastern countries. Although senior U.S. officials take turns to make harsh words to Saudi Arabia, the United States does not intend to really break up with Saudi Arabia. As the leader of the OPEC and also a leading country in the Arab world, if the US-Saudi relations really reach a dead end, it will be far more harmful than good for the United States. Therefore, Sullivan stressed that although US President Biden will not meet with Saudi Crown Prince Salman during the G20 summit, he will not act rashly, but will wait for observation.
Saudi Arabia's response to the dissatisfaction of the United States was a bit tough, saying that Saudi Arabia's decision was related to the oil market environment. Saudi Foreign Minister Jubaier even publicly joked about Biden, who is busy with the midterm elections, saying that in some "special periods", he always has to say something and do something, and will lose meaning after the election season is over. In addition, Saudi Arabia has also begun to strengthen cooperation with China and India, and directly abandon US dollar transactions when necessary and use its own currency to pay for oil costs.
and whether to use RMB to directly pay for oil costs will largely depend on whether the United States uses economic sanctions and other means to suppress oil-producing countries such as Saudi Arabia. There are great differences between the United States on this way of using political means to crack down on oil-producing countries, because the United States is also the world's major oil-producing country, which is "killing one thousand enemies and harming eight hundred of them." If Saudi Arabia strengthens cooperation with China and India, the United States will eventually lose more than it will. And according to the news from the Russian Satellite News Agency on October 20, at the press conference that day, Ma Zhaoxu, deputy minister of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said: China is approaching the center of the world stage like never before.
Ma Zhaoxu pointed out that China is comprehensively promoting major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics, while caring about the destiny of all mankind and building a community with a shared future for mankind. Maintaining international fairness and justice with practical actions, practicing multilateralism , and opposing hegemony, these measures have won global recognition, and China's international influence has also been significantly enhanced. This passage has won high recognition from the outside world. Combined with the current global changes, it is obvious that Saudi Arabia has also realized this. Only by strengthening cooperation with China can we have a future.
