U.S. President Donald Trump wants to grow Europe’s right-wing populist movement but he might have a harder time than he expects winning over European voters.
The MAGA leader is unpopular in Europe, even among the supporters of right-wing populist parties he sees as allies, according to the new POLITICO Poll in partnership with Public First, which surveyed more than 10,000 people across five countries earlier this month. His biggest fans are in Britain, where 50 percent of Reform-aligned respondents had favorable views of Trump. However, in France and Germany, only about a third of people who said they had supported right-wing parties reported seeing Trump in a favorable light.
The poll findings come after the Trump administration rolled out a new national security strategy aimed at cultivating the “growing influence of patriotic European parties,” which have drawn increasing support in France, Germany and the U.K., though they haven’t yet translated that into electoral wins.
The new POLITICO Poll data offers a potential warning to right-wing populist parties trying to attract broader support while also getting closer to Trump, as people who said they would support such parties in a new vote were more negative about Trump than those who supported them in the past across the U.K., France and Germany.
The U.S. president is even more unpopular across the general population. In France and Germany, two-thirds of respondents held a negative opinion of him. In the U.K., 55 percent reported negative views; barely more than in the U.S., where 50 percent said they had negative views. Trump is least popular in Canada, where 72 percent of respondents held a negative opinion.
Supporters of the “patriotic” right-wing populist parties the U.S. administration name-checked in its security strategy are far more supportive of the U.S. president than others but, crucially, not even they delivered a ringing endorsement.
In France, voters of the National Rally of French right-wing populist firebrand Marine Le Pen were broadly appreciative of her. But when it came to the U.S. president, more voters said they held a negative view (38 percent) than reported a positive one (30 percent). Alternative for Germany supporters overwhelmingly approved of party leader Alice Weidel, but were also divided over Trump, with 34 percent thinking well of him and 33 percent opposed.
The findings underscore the challenge facing the National Rally, which isn’t just catering to its past voter base but also trying to win broader backing ahead of local elections next year and a key presidential election in 2027. The party of right-wing populist firebrands Le Pen and Jordan Bardella is the third political force but the largest single party in the National Assembly, and is currently polling well ahead of other parties.
Its leaders were quick to dismiss White House efforts to support Europe’s right-wing forces. Bardella told The Telegraph that he rejected the “vassalage” of “a big brother like Trump,” and Thierry Mariani, a member of the party’s national board, told POLITICO that “Trump treats us like a colony — with his rhetoric, which isn’t a big deal, but especially economically and politically.”
The exception was Britain, where 79 percent of Reform supporters reported holding favorable views of their leader Nigel Farage as Trump found a bare majority of favorable views.
Across the U.K., France and Germany, right-wing populist supporters stood out because of their strong demand that political leaders put their own country first.
Fifty percent of National Rally voters, 47 percent of AfD voters, and 45 percent of Reform UK voters singled it out as one of the most important attributes in political leaders.
Right-wing populist respondents overwhelmingly agreed that this is a quality Trump possesses over French President Emmanuel Macron (88 percent), German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (93 percent) and U.K. PM Keir Starmer (91 percent). And a clear majority said they want their leaders to try and get along with Trump.
Local right-wing populist movements have a “nationalist instinct” in common, according to Jules Walkden, research manager at Public First — but that might ultimately put them on a collision course with Trump’s MAGA movement favoring U.S. interests.
“Supporters of Europe’s right-wing parties clearly want to see their leaders put their own country first, and they may see Trump as a champion of this approach,” Walkden said. “But once elected, the practical demands of delivering on a ‘country first’ promise may quickly expose the limits of this alignment.”
The POLITICO Poll data also suggests that right-wing populist supporters may admire Trump’s policies, but they don’t trust him.
Right-wing populist voters in France and Germany were likelier than others to think that Trump’s policies benefit the U.S. but also likelier to say that they harm other countries while doing so.
Again, Reform UK supporters were most open to Trump, with 42.8 percent saying everyone would benefit from Trump’s policies.
Across Germany, France and the U.K., right-wing populist supporters were far likelier to agree that when a country’s interests clash with allies, the country should come first. They were also more likely to say that domestic industry should be protected, if need be to the detriment of its global competitiveness. Nearly 67 percent of Reform UK voters, 71 percent of National Rally voters, and 72 percent of AfD voters indicated this in the POLITICO Poll.
In spite of that, supporters of those parties tended to be more accepting of the tariffs the Trump administration has put on European industries.
Sixty-five percent of AfD voters said the tariffs were bad for Germany but just 37 percent thought Germany should slap tariffs on the U.S. in return — well below the overall 47 percent of German respondents who favored this. In Britain, just 45 percent of Reform UK voters considered the tariffs a bad thing and just 35 percent said that the country should match U.S. tariffs with its own tariffs on U.S. imports.
But in a sign that right-wing populist supporters’ appreciation of Trump would only go so far, 60 percent of National Rally voters said Trump’s tariffs on imports from Europe were a bad thing for France’s economy. And while they were less likely than others in France to say that their government should match those tariffs, 48 percent still favored retaliation.
This edition of The POLITICO Poll was conducted from Dec. 5 to Dec. 9, surveying 10,510 adults online, with at least 2,000 respondents each from the U.S., Canada, U.K., France and Germany. Results for each country were weighted to be representative on dimensions including age, gender and geography, and have an overall margin of sampling error of ±2 percentage points for each country. Smaller subgroups have higher margins of error.
The survey is an ongoing project from POLITICO and Public First, an independent polling company headquartered in London, to measure public opinion across a broad range of policy areas. You can find new surveys and analysis each month at politico.com/poll. Have questions or comments? Ideas for future surveys? Email us at [email protected].