Do Americans think Trump can make good decisions about various foreign policy issues?

By Jacob Poushter, Jonathan Schulman and Andrew Prozorovsky

Table of Contents

About this research

This Pew Research Center report looks at Americans’ views of the U.S. military action against Iran, which began in February 2026, as well as Americans’ confidence in Trump to make good decisions when it comes to foreign policy.

Why did we do this?

Pew Research Center does research to help the public, media and decision-makers understand important topics. We have studied Americans’ views of politics and major policy issues, including the use of U.S. military force, for decades.

We also conducted this research to check in on how the confident the public is about President Trump’s foreign policy decision-making. It is part of our regular work to understand how Americans feel about international affairs – as well as to understand how Americans feel about major foreign policy issues.

Learn more about Pew Research Center.

How did we do this?

For this report, we surveyed 3,507 adults from March 23 to 29, 2026. Everyone who took part is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel. The survey represents the views of the full U.S. adult population.

Here are the survey questions used for this report, the detailed responses and the survey methodology.

A new Pew Research Center survey conducted March 23-29 finds that majorities of Americans express little or no confidence in President Donald Trump’s handling of various foreign policy issues.

The survey asked about his decision-making in 12 foreign policy areas, including bilateral relations with several countries, trade and international military conflicts.

There is no issue on which a majority express confidence in Trump, but he garners more support in some areas than others. For example, 43% of Americans are very or somewhat confident in his handling of U.S.-Israel relations, compared with 32% who have confidence in him to make good decisions about the Russia-Ukraine war.

There are wide and persistent partisan gaps on these questions.

Among Republicans and independents who lean toward the Republican party, confidence in Trump to make good policy decisions ranges from 74% on trade policy to 60% on the Russia-Ukraine war.

Democrats and Democratic leaners peak at 16% confidence on Trump’s handling of U.S.-Israel relations. But that shrinks to just 7% confidence on U.S. policy toward Iran and the Russia-Ukraine war.

On every issue in the survey, Republicans ages 50 and older are more confident than those ages 18 to 49. For instance, older Republicans are 27 percentage points more confident than younger ones when it comes to Trump’s handling of U.S.-Israel relations (87% vs. 60%).

On some of these issues, there has been a noticeable downward trend in confidence over time.

For example, confidence in Trump’s ability to make good decisions on the Russia-Ukraine war was at 45% in 2024, during his campaign for a second presidential term. But that share fell to 40% in 2025 and stands at 32% today.

Confidence in Trump’s ability to make good policy decisions toward Iran, China and North Korea has also declined.

Views on Trump’s handling of U.S. relations with Israel and Canada have not change since 2025. But confidence is down on policy toward Venezuela since this past January (44% then vs. 39% today).