On every front, President Donald Trump’s tumultuous second term is testing the public’s tolerance for turmoil. American allies are recoiling from the shockwave Trump has unleashed on international affairs even as thousands of U.S. citizens protest the disorder he has unleashed at home.

The administration’s uncharacteristic retreat this week in Minnesota signaled a grudging recognition that its mass deportation program, in its current form, has crossed a line most of the public will not follow. And now, a new survey released Wednesday by the nonpartisan Chicago Council on Global Affairs suggests that Trump is likewise going much further than most Americans would like in dismantling the alliance-based international order that has underpinned American foreign policy since World War II.

The study tracks the results of polls the Council has conducted since 1974 on American attitudes about foreign policy. Over this long period, the Chicago Council study finds much more continuity than change in views about America’s global role. “Majorities across the political spectrum support an active role for the United States in the world, support U.S. alliances, and support the U.S. overseas military presence,” the report concludes. Most “also view international trade as good for the country,” support the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and back military intervention if U.S. allies are attacked.

Trump — with his brusque threats against traditional allies, scornful dismissal of NATO, warm outreach to dictators and sweeping imposition of unilateral tariffs — fundamentally rejects those principles.

“I’ve said many times the Pax Americana was born (with Pearl Harbor) on December 7, 1941, and it died on January 20, 2025,” at Trump’s second inauguration, says Ivo Daalder, the recently retired president of the Chicago Council and former U.S. Ambassador to NATO under Barack Obama.

The structure of alliances and institutions the U.S. built after World War II (which includes NATO, the United Nations and the World Bank) is hardly perfect. That world order produced plenty of damaging outcomes in the 20th century, including the war in Vietnam and patterns of global trade that gutted traditional manufacturing communities in wealthy countries. But that structure also navigated the Cold War without incinerating the planet and enabled an enormous worldwide rise in living standards and life expectancy.

The Chicago Council polling makes clear that for all its faults, most Americans continue to believe the benefits of this system exceed the costs.

Trump’s collision with that consensus is unlikely to cause him much near-term damage. Strategists in both parties agree that in most circumstances, only a minuscule number of Americans base their voting decisions primarily on foreign policy. In the 2024 presidential race, for instance, just 4% of voters said in the exit poll that foreign policy was the most important issue guiding their choice.

The obvious exception to this rule is when American forces are engaged in combat. Rising resistance to the Vietnam War eroded Lyndon Johnson’s support in the late 1960s, just as growing disillusionment with the Iraq occupation sapped George W. Bush’s almost 40 years later. But “as long as American troops aren’t being killed … the public gives a huge degree of permission to any administration to conduct its foreign policy,” says Democratic pollster Jeremy Rosner, who directed congressional outreach and speechwriting for the National Security Council under Bill Clinton.

Still, it’s a mistake to conclude that foreign policy doesn’t influence election outcomes. Apart from the economy, very few voters base their choice on any single issue; foreign policy is hardly unique in that respect.

What foreign policy does do is shape assessments of a president’s leadership. The toppling of the Taliban and the initial stages of the Iraq War, for instance, boosted George W. Bush’s image of strength and decisiveness. Conversely, the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan irreversibly punctured the image of steady competence that was so valuable to Joe Biden in the 2020 campaign.

Similarly, Trump’s rupture of U.S. relations around the world today is reinforcing the sense among many voters that he is unleashing too much chaos, both abroad and at home. The global disarray compounds the domestic disorder.

The results of the latest Chicago Council survey point to several areas of risk for Trump. The most immediate is that most Americans — often by overwhelming majorities — oppose many of the specific policies he’s advancing. Just 16% of Americans said they consider tariffs an effective way to advance America’s interests; only 21% say that expanding the territory of the U.S. is an appropriate use for the military. The prospect of using force to acquire Greenland or Canada draws an icy response, with only about 5% of Americans endorsing either. And more than three in five Americans want to continue aid to Ukraine — even as the president appears increasingly friendly with Russia.

More broadly, the unifying theme of Trump’s foreign policy seems to be a return to 19th-century-style spheres of influence, where the U.S. uses military and economic threats to exercise hegemony over the Western Hemisphere while ceding more control over Asia to China and Europe to Russia.

But only a tiny share of Americans in the Chicago Council poll said they want a sphere-of-influence approach to foreign policy. Just 14% said that reflected their views for Asia and an even smaller share, 7%, said it was appropriate for Europe.

By contrast, support for America’s traditional internationalist role remains robust. Three-fifths of those polled agreed the U.S. should play an active role in world affairs. Two-thirds said the U.S. should act through the United Nations, even if that requires compromises. Even as Trump belittles NATO, almost exactly three-fourths of Americans say we should be more committed to the alliance.

Most remarkably, given the deep polarization in the U.S., Americans express bipartisan support for many of these priorities. Republicans are notably less supportive of international consultation than Democrats or independents, but even here, the Council found that a solid majority of GOP voters support the U.S. taking an active global role and working with NATO. Across party lines, most Americans reject Trump’s frequent assertion that our alliances mostly benefit other nations.

Trump may not be too worried about that disconnect; for most Americans, international cooperation remains an abstract concept. But even if specific foreign policy issues don’t typically motivate voters, there is a risk for the president in the growing numbers alarmed about the glass he is shattering in every direction.

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This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Ronald Brownstein is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering politics and policy. He is a CNN analyst and the author or editor of seven books.

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