Survey: Citizens of many US allies trust Putin over Trump

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vladimir Putin is more trusted than Donald Trump to do the right thing for the world among citizens of numerous U.S. allies, including Japan, South Korea and seven European NATO members, according to a survey released Wednesday.

[...] Trump's scores in particular point to a stunningly high level of international public distrust in the American president, a position colloquially described as "leader of the free world" as many smaller countries rely on the United States for support and defense.

The United States is obligated to defend all NATO countries under the alliance's treaty, which was initially aimed at the Soviet Union.

In Greece, Germany, Turkey, Hungary, France, Italy and Spain, more people had confidence in the Russian president than in his U.S. counterpart "to do the right thing regarding world affairs," according to the poll.

The results come from Pew's Spring 2017 Global Attitudes Survey, which interviewed randomly selected adults in countries around the world between February and April.