WASHINGTON, D.C. -- As President Donald Trump and other leaders of NATO countries gather in the United Kingdom to celebrate the organization's 70th anniversary, two Gallup analyses detail Americans' current and historical views of U.S. participation in the military alliance.
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In March of this year, Gallup reported on Americans' latest views of NATO, finding broad support for maintaining the alliance among Republicans and Democrats. In fact, more Americans believed NATO should be maintained than said the United Nations plays a necessary role in the world today.
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In April 1948, a year before the NATO pact was signed, Gallup found two-thirds of Americans agreeing with the general principle of the U.S. participating in a "permanent military alliance" with the Western European countries that participated in the Marshall Plan.
The Gallup World Poll sheds an international light on NATO:
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Many Eastern European countries polled in 2016 said they rely on NATO for protection, although two of them saw it more as a threat.
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Gallup's global trends on approval of U.S. leadership found NATO countries posting the largest declines in approval between 2016 and 2017, including a 26-percentage-point decline in the U.K.
Visit Gallup's foreign affairs topic page and its U.S. Position in the World A-Z page for more on Americans' views about relations with other countries.
Visit Gallup's World News page for the latest global findings across a range of issues.
