If the US presidential election were held in Russia today, the next president would be … Donald Trump.
Which G20 country would prefer Donald Trump to Hillary Clinton? There’s only one.
Matthew Cavanaugh/Getty Images
Those are the results of new survey research by YouGov. It found Russia is the only country in the G20, the international forum of 20 of the world’s major economies, that prefers Trump to Hillary Clinton:
At the same time, Mexico really doesn’t like Trump, preferring Clinton by a whopping 54 percentage points.
The findings aren’t really surprising. Much of the Russian foreign policy establishment doesn’t like Clinton. Russian President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, has praised Trump, and Trump has returned the favor. Trump is also, like Putin, widely perceived as an authoritarian strongman. All of this earns big points among Russians for Trump and against Clinton.
Mexico, on the other hand, has been the constant target of Trump’s campaign. Trump not only launched his campaign on accusations that Mexican immigrants are criminals and “rapists,” but he also has threatened to block Mexican immigrants from sending remittances back to their home country, and he’s threatened to start a trade war with Mexico, among other countries.
So in many ways, the data just reflects what one would expect of Trump’s comments in favor of an authoritarian regime and hateful remarks toward a big US trading partner.
