Over half of Americans approve of how Trump has handled the situation with North Korea according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Wednesday.
After the North Korean dictator and the U.S. President signed an agreement after their meeting in Singapore on Tuesday, Kim Jong Un agreed to take steps towards the denuclearization of the DPRK and Trump agreed to take security measures to protect North Korea.
The poll suggests that many Americans may remain skeptical, finding that only a quarter of Americans believe that the agreements made at the summit will result in the actual denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
Additionally, the trustworthiness of those involved seems to be weighing heavily on people as forty percent did not believe that the countries would stick to their agreements. Twenty-six percent, however, believed that the countries would keep their promises. Many Americans may remain unsure as thirty-four percent stated that they did not know whether the countries would remain true to their word.
Trump himself believes that we are no longer under threat of nuclear war, tweeting:
Just landed – a long trip, but everybody can now feel much safer than the day I took office. There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea. Meeting with Kim Jong Un was an interesting and very positive experience. North Korea has great potential for the future!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 13, 2018
Before taking office people were assuming that we were going to War with North Korea. President Obama said that North Korea was our biggest and most dangerous problem. No longer – sleep well tonight!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 13, 2018
The American people may be less sure of the matter as only thirty-nine percent believed that the actions taken at the North Korean summit lessened the threat of nuclear war, while thirty-seven percent believed it didn’t change anything.
“The Reuters/Ipsos poll suggests the Republican president has broad support for one of his biggest foreign policy efforts, despite criticism from non-proliferation experts that Trump had exacted few concrete commitments from Kim on Tuesday on dismantling his nuclear arsenal,” Reuters said of the poll when it was released
The poll also found that while Republicans were two times more likely to believe that the meeting lowered the threat of nuclear and three times more likely to believe that both the U.S. and DPRK would follow through, thirty percent of Democrats said that they approve of how Donald Trump handled the situation.
The poll also found that forty percent of those asked believe that Trump deserves the most credit for the progress made in the summer compared to South Korean President Moon Jae-in with eleven percent and Kim Jong Un with seven percent.
It’s too soon to tell whether these successes for the Trump administration will make a difference in the campaigns of GOP politician in upcoming state elections across the nation, but its clear that a majority of Americans are on the same page when it comes to relations with the DPRK.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll has a credibility interval of 4 percent for the full sample and 6 percent for the Democrats and Republicans.
