This Is the Most Trusted Country in the World

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jan 18, 8:30AM EST

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This Is the Most Trusted Country in the World — © Thinkstock

What do people trust? Their families, friends or employers? The media that give them information? The government? Institutions, both profit and nonprofit?

Trust has become a major issue in America, or perhaps it always has been. “Fake news” has become a regular part of our vocabulary. Many people are suspicious of what they see on social media. Politicians lie, which is a hallmark of the recent rise in partisanship.

For its recently released Trust Barometer 2022, public relations firm Edelman looked at levels of trust in 28 countries based on a survey of over 36,000 people. Scores for government and media fell compared to the previous study. In part, this was because these institutions were viewed as “divisive.” Concern about “fake news” rose in almost every country.

People were asked if they trust their own government. Most democracies posted a drop from the last study. Totalitarian regimes did surprisingly well. The United States sat well down the list of nations, at 44%. Compared to the previous year, and the U.S. number fell by five points. Germany posted the largest loss at seven points, from 56% to 43%. Australia declined by six points to 53%.
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The Edelman list of trust in government was topped by China at 83%, which was up 11 points. It was followed by the United Arab Emirates at 76%, up nine points. Among the reasons China did so well were high trust levels in business (84%), non-governmental organizations (NGOs) (77%), government (91%) and media (81%). It bested the United States in each of these categories by wide margins.

The results of the survey imply that trust in government and media in China is the foundation of its high score. This holds true for the poor figures for the United States.

It would be naive to think that the study completely explains why China does so well and the United States does so poorly. The view of many Americans is that the Chinese government manipulates what its residents see and hear about the world. It appears that the central government’s efforts in that regard have been unusually successful.

Click here to see which are the most and least trusted institutions in America.
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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.