North Korea developments - First look at public opinion
Bottom Line: You don't need me to point out that today's political landscape is among the most contentious in modern political history. For that reason, it's hard to get honest responses to many of the biggest political issues at any given time – especially when President Trump is involved. For that reason, the initial reaction by Americans on back of the North Korean progress is all that more significant. Pew Research is out with the first accredited polling on our views of the Trump administration's advances with North Korea...
71% Approve
21% disapprove
8% no opinion
That's clearly decisive support for the administration's progress thus far. We're still generally skeptical of North Korea's intentions however...
49% don't think North Korea is serious
38% do think North Korea is serious
13% don't know
What's interesting is that more Americans seem to believe that the current US foreign policy approach is the best it's been since Pew began polling on US foreign policy intervention after 9/11. As recently as 2014, 51% of Americans believed we were too involved foreign affairs. Currently we're about evenly split. Regarding the US's role in foreign policy...
33% think we're doing too little
30% too much
29% just right
While the economic improvements have been the most important advancements of the Trump administration the foreign policy successes and improvements (ISIS, Syria, Israel, Saudi Arabia and now North Korea) are a close second. I'm skeptical but hopeful of where the North Korean talks will lead but the progress is notable in the meantime.