TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - When Barack Obama moved into the White House in 2009, he sparked a wave of enthusiasm in Germany that, looking back now, seems almost surreal. After the tensions of the George W. Bush era, the new US president's approval ratings among Germans skyrocketed.
According to a Pew Research Center survey, 93% of Germans believed Obama would "do the right thing regarding world affairs." That remains a record to this day. Even in 2016, at the end of his second term, an extraordinary 86% of Germans still trusted Obama.
Under his leadership, the United States was considered a reliable partner and role model. This was despite the fallout following damaging leaks revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden .
But this all changed when Donald Trump won his first presidential election in 2016. German trust in the US president plummeted to a fraction of what it had been. A poll conducted towards the end of his first term found that only about 10% of respondents still trusted him.
And that has not changed significantly during his second term. While the majority of Germans viewed relations with the US positively when Obama and his successor Joe Biden were in power, by the middle of last year 73% said in the Politbarometer, a poll conducted by German broadcaster ZDF, that relations with the US under Trump were "bad."
According to a new poll by the Allensbach Institute, a German market research institute, two-thirds of Germans currently see the US as "one of the greatest threats to world peace" alongside Russia and China.
US no longer a reliable ally
The drop in approval has a lot to do with Donald Trump as an individual and the radical change of course the US has taken under his leadership. While almost all his predecessors considered NATO and the European Union important allies and emphasized common ground, the US under Trump has been different.
The Trump administration has insisted that EU member states should bear more responsibility for their own security and increase their military spending accordingly. Trump has repeatedly snubbed the US' European allies, whether with regard to the Russia-Ukraine war or over his plans to take over Greenland. In Germany, the US is increasingly regarded as an unreliable partner.
While campaigning for president in February 2024, Trump said at an event that if he were re-elected he would not protect NATO partners in the event of an attack by Russia if they had not invested what he thought was enough in their own defense.
He even said that he was prepared to "encourage" the Russian authorities "to do whatever the hell they want" to any NATO country.
Such statements have made a strong impression in Germany, where only just under a third of people think the US would provide military assistance if a European NATO member state were attacked.
German companies scarred by aggressive economic policies
The US president's aggressive tariff and economic policies have also left scars. Most goods imported from the EU are now subject to a 15% tariff, while for steel and aluminum, the tariff is as high as 50%. German companies have been hit hard and their exports to the US fell by more than 9% in 2025 compared to the previous year.
According to a study by the German Economic Institute in Cologne, German companies reduced their direct investments in the US by around 45% between February and November 2025 compared to the same period the previous year. There is continued uncertainty because of the threat of more tariffs, for example with regard to the Greenland controversy.
"Business conditions have declined considerably," said Roland Rohde, an expert on the US at Germany Trade and Invest, a foreign trade investment agency owned by the German government. "The mood among German companies has deteriorated significantly over the year as a whole," he told DW.
Although German companies have not turned away from the US as a sales market, they are currently avoiding major investments because of the government's unpredictable trade policies.
Drop in tourism to US
The US remains the most popular destination for German travelers outside of Europe but currently many Germans are reluctant to go to there on vacation because of the country's tough immigration policies and stricter entry requirements.
Between January and July 2025, just under 780,000 German tourists flew to the US, around 12% fewer than the same period in the previous year.
"The US has an image that stands for freedom and individuality," aviation expert Heinrich Grossbongardt told German business weekly Wirtschaftswoche. "But vacationers don't want to see the National Guard patrolling in Los Angeles and raids against immigrants."
People are also deterred by plans to require foreign tourists entering the US to share five years of their social media history, as well as reports of Germans suddenly finding themselves in detention or being deported. The number of applications for student exchanges in the US fell significantly last year with some media reports speaking of a 50% decline.
It is clear there is an immense loss of trust in the US but as a look at the past 20 years shows, this need not be permanent. While there were very low approval ratings for George W. Bush and Trump, they shot up again for Obama and Biden.
A change in the Oval Office, or at least a more friendly attitude towards Europe in Washington, could possibly restore trust.
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