Americans sharply divided over Trump’s embrace of Putin

<p>While US allies are alarmed at changing loyalties, ordinary Americans are starkly divided on the president’s shift away from Ukraine and Europe</p><p>Donald Trump’s shocking and mendacious <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/02/14/americans-views-of-the-war-in-ukraine-continue-to-differ-by-party/">attack</a> this week on the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/ukraine">Ukrainian</a> president, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/volodymyr-zelenskiy">Volodymyr Zelenskyy</a>, as a “dictator” while cozying up to the Russian president and indicating that traditional US security support for Europe is waning may have alarmed US allies abroad but has prompted a more starkly divided response among Americans at home.</p><p>Reflecting the country’s deeply partisan attitude to the new president and his “America first” foreign policy doctrine, polling suggests that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/republicans">Republicans</a> are much more likely to oppose additional help for war-torn Ukraine. A <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/02/14/americans-views-of-the-war-in-ukraine-continue-to-differ-by-party/">Pew Research Center survey</a> earlier this month found that 47% of Republicans but just 14% of Democrats thought the US was providing too much support to Ukraine – views that have changed dramatically since the war began three years ago, when just 7% of all American adults (9% of Republicans and 5% of Democrats) said the US was providing too much support to Ukraine.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/22/trump-putin-friendship">Continue reading...</a>