More Canadians Now View China Favourably Than the U.S., With Just 20% Trusting Trump: Pew

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For generations, Canada’s relationship with the United States was treated as a permanent fact of national life: sometimes tense, usually dependable and almost always warmer than Ottawa’s relationship with Beijing. New Pew Research Center findings show how sharply that assumption has weakened.

China is now viewed favourably by 44% of Canadians, compared with 33% for the United States. Only 20% express confidence in Donald Trump’s handling of world affairs, while 35% say the same of Chinese President Xi Jinping. The numbers do not amount to a Canadian embrace of China, and skepticism toward Beijing remains substantial. What they reveal instead is a striking loss of confidence in America—one significant enough to reorder how Canadians assess the world’s two largest powers.

A Reversal That Happened in Only Three Years

The most dramatic part of Pew’s finding is the speed of the reversal. In 2023, 57% of Canadians held a favourable opinion of the United States, while only 14% said the same about China. By 2025, the two countries were rated equally. In 2026, China moved ahead, with a 44% favourable rating against 33% for the U.S. That creates an 11-point advantage for Beijing in a country long assumed to be instinctively pro-American.

The change reflects movement in both directions rather than a simple surge of enthusiasm for China. China’s Canadian rating has climbed 30 points since 2023, while the U.S. rating has fallen 24 points. A neighbour, military ally and deeply integrated trading partner has therefore lost ground to a state that Canadians have often viewed with suspicion. That does not erase decades of social and economic ties with the United States, but it does show that familiarity no longer guarantees goodwill.

Trump Now Trails Xi Among Canadians

Pew’s leadership question makes the shift even more personal. Just 20% of Canadians say they have confidence in Donald Trump to do the right thing regarding world affairs. Xi Jinping receives a higher rating at 35%, producing a 15-point gap. The wording matters: Pew measured confidence in international decision-making, not whether Canadians generally “trust” either leader in every setting.

Neither president is broadly popular in Canada. Xi’s 35% rating still means most Canadians do not express confidence in him, so the result is better understood as a comparative judgment than an endorsement. Trump’s score is the more consequential figure because American presidents have traditionally benefited from the closeness of the bilateral relationship. When the U.S. leader ranks below China’s president in Canada, the reputational damage reaches beyond one personality. It can affect how Canadians interpret American promises, alliances and pressure on issues ranging from trade to security in the coming years.

Favouring China Does Not Mean Ignoring Its Record

A favourable rating for China should not be confused with approval of the Chinese government. Even as 44% of Canadians view the country positively, 51% still hold an unfavourable opinion. Canadians are also highly skeptical about civil liberties in China: only 13% say the Chinese government respects the personal freedoms of its people.

The United States still performs better on that measure, but its advantage has narrowed sharply. In 2021, 60% of Canadians said the U.S. government respected personal freedoms, compared with 7% who said that about China. In 2026, the U.S. figure has fallen to 34%, while China’s has risen to 13%. That leaves Washington ahead, but by 21 points rather than 53. The lesson is not that Canadians now see the two political systems as equivalent. It is that many are judging both more critically, while America’s long-standing democratic advantage is no longer as automatic or as large as it once was.

Younger Canadians Are Driving Much of the Shift

Age is one of the clearest dividing lines in Canadian attitudes toward China. Among adults aged 18 to 34, 61% hold a favourable view of the country. That falls to 41% among those aged 35 to 49 and 39% among Canadians aged 50 and older. The 22-point gap between the youngest and oldest groups suggests that the national average conceals very different generational instincts.

Political ideology matters as well. Half of Canadians on the left view China favourably, as do 51% of those in the centre, compared with 33% on the right. These differences may shape how future governments talk about trade, technology and national security. A younger electorate that is less attached to traditional assumptions about American leadership may be more open to diversification, even while remaining wary of Beijing. At the same time, the figures do not reveal why respondents answered as they did. Economic pragmatism, dissatisfaction with Washington and changing media habits may overlap, but the data establishes correlation rather than a single cause.

The United States Is No Longer Seen as Dependable

The erosion goes beyond favourability. In 2022, 83% of Canadians described the United States as a reliable partner. In 2026, only 35% do, while 65% say it is not reliable. A 48-point collapse in four years is extraordinary for two countries connected by a defence alliance, an integrated energy system and one of the world’s largest commercial relationships.

Canada is not alone. Pew recorded steep declines in perceptions of U.S. reliability across several long-standing allies, including Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, Australia, Italy, Spain, France and the United Kingdom. Across the 36 countries examined, only a 35% median says the U.S. contributes to global peace and stability, while a 32% median believes Washington takes the interests of other countries into account when making foreign-policy decisions. For Canadians, that broader pattern may reinforce the sense that the bilateral strain is part of a larger change in America’s global image, not merely another temporary disagreement between Ottawa and Washington.

Canada Is Part of a Wider Global Reordering

The Canadian result is striking, but it is not isolated. China is viewed more positively than the United States in 25 of the 36 countries included in Pew’s direct comparison. The U.S. leads China in only six countries, four of them in the Asia-Pacific region: India, Japan, the Philippines and South Korea. Canadians and Mexicans, America’s two closest neighbours, both now rate China more favourably.

The leadership comparison follows a similar pattern. Xi receives higher confidence ratings than Trump in 22 countries, although majorities in many wealthier nations remain unconvinced by either leader. Across the broader 37-country study of China, a median of 51% holds a favourable view of the country and 39% an unfavourable one. Those averages are boosted by much warmer opinion in parts of Africa, Latin America and South or Southeast Asia. The shift therefore signals a more competitive global reputation contest, not universal confidence in Beijing or the disappearance of serious concerns about China.

Public Opinion Is Moving Faster Than Canada’s Economy

Canada’s mood may be shifting, but its economic geography remains overwhelmingly American. Statistics Canada reported that 71.7% of Canadian merchandise exports went to the United States in 2025. That was down from 75.9% in 2024, yet it still dwarfed China’s role; Canadian merchandise exports to China represented 3.8% of total exports in 2024.

The practical links run far deeper than headline trade shares. Canada and the United States recorded $216.8 billion in two-way energy trade in 2024, and more than 100 cross-border oil and gas pipelines and electricity transmission lines support the continental system. Public frustration can encourage Ottawa to diversify markets, but replacing the U.S. is not a realistic near-term option. The more plausible outcome is a hedging strategy: preserve essential American access while building stronger ties elsewhere. Pew’s findings give political momentum to that idea, but the infrastructure, supply chains and investment accumulated over decades ensure that opinion can change much faster than commerce.

What the Pew Numbers Do—and Do Not—Prove

Pew’s comparison draws on 42,151 adults in 36 countries, interviewed between February 8 and May 13, 2026. The research used national samples and a mix of telephone, face-to-face and online interviews conducted under the direction of established research organizations. That scale makes the findings important, but no poll can predict exactly how attitudes will translate into votes, purchases or foreign policy.

The result should therefore be read as a snapshot of reputation, not a referendum on replacing the United States with China. Respondents were asked whether they viewed countries favourably and whether they had confidence in leaders to do the right thing in world affairs. Those questions capture broad sentiment, not detailed preferences about defence, intelligence sharing, tariffs or human rights. Even so, the direction is difficult to dismiss. When China outranks the United States in Canadian favourability and Xi outranks Trump in confidence, Ottawa faces a public environment in which automatic deference to Washington is becoming politically harder to justify.

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