The United States was born on 4 July 1776. Now half-way into its third century, some are beginning to wonder how well it has aged.
The image of Uncle Sam tells you to celebrate his birthday or else. (Illustration by News Decoder)
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The final line of the U.S. national anthem reads: “O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
It will be sung often as the country heads to its official birthday, 4 July. The day celebrates the declaration of Independence from Great Britain in 1776 by all 13 British colonies. It marks the formation of what became the United States.
Through a series of territorial acquisitions over the years, the 13 grew to 50, with Hawaii the last in 1959. But as the United States nears its 250th birthday, the country’s global image has darkened sharply. At home, the picture is bleak. Many Americans are losing pride in their country and think it is on the wrong track.
Separate surveys show that the country is in a sour mood. That throws a cloud over the aim of America 250, set up by the administration of President Donald Trump. It wants “citizens to have a renewed love of American history, experience the beauty of our country and ignite a spirit of adventure and innovation that will raise our nation to new heights over the next 250 years.”
Trump has been the target of relentless criticism from Democrats and Independents from the day he took office in his first term. In his inaugural address he painted a bleak picture of the administration of his predecessor, Joe Biden, and declared, “I alone can fix it.”
Aided by Republican majorities in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, he began a relentless expansion of his executive powers.
The changing image of the United States
Alarm that the United States is sliding towards authoritarianism has come from a wide spectrum of society, ranging from human rights organisations to artists. It is somewhat of an irony that perhaps the most memorable quote criticising the Trump administration has come from a man who rose to global superstardom with a song entitled “Born in the USA.”
At a recent stop on a music tour, Bruce Springsteen told an audience of thousands: “We are no longer the home of the free, the land of the brave. To many, we are now America the reckless, unpredictable, predatory rogue nation. That is this administration’s and this president’s legacy.”
Today’s perceptions contrast with decades of the United States enjoying a positive image in much of the world, more so after the end of World War II when it began its rise to superpower status, setting up alliances across the world in competition with the Soviet Union, its WWII ally and later its Cold War adversary.
How senior U.S. officials (and many ordinary citizens) at the time saw their country was reflected by then Secretary of State Madeline Albright in a 1998 television interview: “We … are America, we are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future.”
Coming from a measured diplomat, that soaring language produced little or no pushback from the many nations that had accepted the United States as their leader in international affairs.
America First
The perception of the United States as a force for good has been fading. It virtually vanished after Donald Trump began his second term in office in January 2025, perpetuating the concept of “America First” that he developed in his first term from 2017 to 2021.
He cast aside the notion that the United States is an exceptional country destined to exert global leadership and promote democracy and human rights around the world. Trump disdains international organisations and his administration has withdrawn from 66 of them, including the World Health Organization and the Paris Agreement on climate change which was adopted by 195 countries.
This move underscored the extent to which the United States has abandoned the concept of “soft power“. For years, that served as an important tool to influence other countries by attraction and persuasion rather than coercion, force and commercial transactions. The world took notice of the new emphasis on military might.
Nothing highlights how that changed perceptions than a global survey in May that showed more positive views of China and Russia than the United States.
The survey is an annual exercise commissioned by the Alliance of Democracies Foundation, a watchdog group based in Denmark. Its findings were drawn from polling more than 94,000 respondents in 85 countries. It is said to be the largest survey of its kind.
Not so great a nation?
In 82 of the countries surveyed, citizens held negative views of the United States. “The fast decline of the United States’ perception around the world is saddening but not shocking,” former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said when he presented the survey results.
“U.S. foreign policy over the past 18 months has, among other things, called into question the transatlantic relationship, imposed widespread tariffs and threatened to invade a NATO ally’s territory,” Rasmussen said, referring to President Trump’s stated intention to take control of Greenland, a Danish territory.
Add the painful economic impact resulting from the unprovoked war on Iran that Trump launched on 28 February and it is easy to understand why Rasmussen, a former Prime Minister of Denmark, said the unprecedented decline of views of the United States was “not shocking.”
The war on Iran began with devastating waves of air and missile strikes on 13,000 targets, from military installations to suspected nuclear facilities. Iran responded by closing the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway which carries 20% of the world’s oil, gas and fertilisers.
Iranian attacks on a number of ships and the threat of mining the Strait kept hundreds of tankers and fully-loaded cargo vessels from trying to get to their destinations.
A nation at war
The war is now in its third month and indirect negotiations, brokered by Pakistan, have not been successful in reopening the vital waterway. That has resulted in sharply higher prices for products that rely on goods shipped through the Strait.
Countries affected range from Asia and Africa to the United States, where polls show that the war is deeply unpopular because it has made life more expensive for most Americans. According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll in the third month of the war, 63% of respondents complain that their finances have been negatively affected.
Trump will turn 80 three weeks before his country officially turns 250. He has argued that the short-term pain caused by the effects of the closure of the Strait will be transformed into long-term gain. That argument strains the credulity of most citizens.
The president’s approval rating has languished consistently below 40% in recent months. More than 60% of the population now considers the war on Iran a mistake. Disapproval rates are now at the levels of the wars in Vietnam and Iraq.
Young Americans (ages 18 to 29) are particularly disenchanted with the way the country is going in its 250th year, according to the latest Harvard Youth Poll. It found that only 13% of young Americans believe the country is on the right track. Only 15% trust the government and 68% think elected officials are motivated by selfish reasons.
Their outlook on the future is bleak: only about 1 in 4 young Americans feel hopeful about their country’s future, a significant drop from a survey in 2021.
Measuring the mood of a people
But perhaps the most remarkable poll of the mood in America’s birthday year has come from Gallup, one of the world’s most respected polling organisations. It found that the share of Americans who are extremely or very proud of their country has fallen to historic lows — just 58%.
Pride in the United States has long been in the DNA of the country but Gallup found that it has declined by deep partisan divides and shifting generational trends, i.e. skeptical views from the young.
In the past, there have been good reasons for pride. Massive waves of immigration around the turn of the 20th century — more than 20 million people arrived between 1880 and 1920 — helped turn the country into a centre of innovation, science and enterprise. The United States has won more Nobel Prizes than any other country since the prize was first awarded in 1901. According to the Institute of Immigration Research, 142 of the 400 U.S. citizens who won academic Nobel Prizes were immigrants.
This was an era when immigrants were welcomed. A sonnet written by Emma Lazarus to help fund the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty conveys a bygone culture: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me.”
In 1903, it was engraved on a bronze plaque and placed inside the pedestal. Now both legal and illegal immigration has been sharply reduced by sweeping restrictions. Trump administration decrees have halted granting visas for nationals from nearly 40 countries.
A republic or autocracy?
As the birthday nears, the response to a question posed to Benjamin Franklin, one of the five men who drafted the Declaration of Independence, comes to mind. The day the founders finished writing the U.S. Constitution, Elizabeth Willing Powel, a prominent figure in Philadelphia society, asked him: “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”
His reply: “A republic, if you can keep it.”
In an irony of history, his subtle suggestion that it needs the participation of citizens to keep the new state intact has prompted a relatively small but growing movement of Americans who fear that their country is sliding into an autocracy.
In March, an estimated eight million anti-Trump protesters took to the streets of cities across the country under the banner of “No Kings“. More rallies are planned in advance of 4 July.
How will you celebrate the United States’ birthday?
Questions to consider:
1. What is meant by an “America First” policy?
2. Why has “No Kings” become a rallying cry in the United States?
3. Why do you think Benjamin Franklin worried that a republic system of government would be difficult to maintain?
Bernd Debusmann is a former columnist for Reuters who has worked as a correspondent, bureau chief and editor in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and United States. He has reported from more than 100 countries and lived in nine. He was shot twice in the course of his work – once covering a night battle in the center of Beirut and once in an assassination attempt prompted by his reporting on Syria.