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President Joe Biden of the US steps out of a beach club in South Carolina on Aug. 15. (AP/Yonhap News)

Around 70% of South Koreans expressed confidence in the global leadership of US President Joe Biden, a recent survey has found.

On Tuesday, the US polling organization Pew Research Center published findings from a survey of citizens in 18 countries considered to be US allies. The results showed a median rate of 58% of respondents expressing confidence in Biden’s global leadership.

The survey, which was carried out this spring, showed the highest rate of confidence in Poland (82%), followed by Sweden (74%). South Korea ranked third highest.

In 13 of the 14 countries surveyed in both 2021 and 2022, double-digit declines were observed in rates of confidence in Biden. But in South Korea, the rate this year was 3 percentage points higher than last year.

It is impossible to compare assessments internationally and at home by the exact same standards. But the overseas evaluations could be seen as relatively generous, given that Biden’s job performance approval ratings in the US have been low, coming in below 40%.

In the case of Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump, only 17% of South Koreans expressed confidence in him in 2020, during the last year of his term. The low rating was the result of Trump’s immoderate moves, which included calls for drastically increasing South Korea’s share of defense costs.

Among the countries examined, all but Israel showed confidence in Biden remaining higher than confidence in Trump. In Israel’s case, 60% of respondents expressed confidence in Biden, lower than the 71% who said they had confidence in Trump in 2019. Analysts attribute that higher level to Trump’s overtly pro-Israel policies, which included relocating the US Embassy to Jerusalem, a city that is not internationally recognized as Israel’s capital.

Fifty-two percent of all respondents said Biden had made the right decision a year ago in pulling out all US troops stationed in Afghanistan, while 39% said the decision was a mistake.

But when asked about the withdrawal process, only 33% said it had been carried out well, while 56% said it had not been.

When asked whether they felt the US could be viewed as a trustworthy partner, 83% of South Korean respondents agreed — more than the median overall rate of 79%. The percentage of South Koreans giving an affirmative response to the question was 25 percentage points higher than last year.

Both French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz received similar confidence ratings to Biden at 61% and 58%, respectively. In contrast, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin earned low respective ratings of 18% and 9%.

The countries examined in the survey were South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Australia, Singapore, Canada, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Hungary, Greece and Israel.

By Lee Bon-young, Washington correspondent

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]