--- title: President Barack Obama's Approval Ratings Plummet to New Lows description: Challenges in multiple regions across the world have sunk President Obama's foreign policy approval ratings to new lows canonical: https://time.com/2893687/obama-foreign-policy-nbc-wsj-poll/ author: Sam Frizell article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-06-18T12:16:18.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T08:28:41.947Z article:section: Politics og:title: President Barack Obama's Approval Ratings Plummet to New Lows og:description: Challenges in multiple regions across the world have sunk President Obama's foreign policy approval ratings to new lows og:url: https://time.com/2893687/obama-foreign-policy-nbc-wsj-poll/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb49148573be53040/6986981155a859816ca816be/presobamairaq.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4928 og:image:height: 2772 og:image:alt: President Barack Obama makes a statement on the situation in Iraq on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington on June 13, 2014. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: President Barack Obama's Approval Ratings Plummet to New Lows twitter:description: Challenges in multiple regions across the world have sunk President Obama's foreign policy approval ratings to new lows twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb49148573be53040/6986981155a859816ca816be/presobamairaq.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Obama's Foreign Policy Approval Rating Falls to New Low > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [Sam Frizell](https://time.com/author/sam-frizell/) ## Sam Frizell Jun 18, 2014 12:16 PM UTC  President Barack Obama makes a statement on the situation in Iraq on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington on June 13, 2014. President Barack Obama makes a statement on the situation in Iraq on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington on June 13, 2014.Nicholas Kamm—AFP/Getty Images by [Sam Frizell](https://time.com/author/sam-frizell/) ## Sam Frizell Jun 18, 2014 12:16 PM UTC Obama’s foreign policy approval rating has [plummeted](http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/nbc-wsj-poll-obamas-foreign-policy-rating-plummets-even-without-n133461) to the lowest level of his presidency as he deals with multiple overseas challenges in countries including Iraq, Ukraine, and Afghanistan, according to a new poll. The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showed that just 37 percent of Americans approve of Obama’s handling of foreign policy—an all-time low in the survey for the President’s tenure—while 57 percent disapprove. The Obama administration’s decision to exchange five imprisoned Taliban fighters for U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was unpopular, with Americans disagreeing by a 44 percent to 30 percent margin with the swap. “This is a bad poll for President Obama, and not a good poll for anybody else,” Republican pollster Bill McInturff, who conducted the survey with Democrats Peter Hart and Fred Yang, told NBC. Obama’s overall approval rating is tied for an all-time low at 41 percent, down three points from April. The poll was conducted among 1,000 adults between June 11-15, before the recent collapse of cities in northern Iraq to extremist Sunni militants, so it does not reflect public opinion of that unfolding event. Its overall margin of error is +/- 3.1 percentage points. \[[_NBC_](http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/nbc-wsj-poll-obamas-foreign-policy-rating-plummets-even-without-n133461)\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/2893687/obama-foreign-policy-nbc-wsj-poll/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/2893687/obama-foreign-policy-nbc-wsj-poll/"},"headline":"Obama's Foreign Policy Approval Rating Falls to New Low","datePublished":"2014-06-18T12:16:18.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T08:28:41.947Z","description":"Challenges in multiple regions across the world have sunk President Obama's foreign policy approval ratings to new lows, according to a new WSJ/NBC poll","url":"https://time.com/2893687/obama-foreign-policy-nbc-wsj-poll/","keywords":["White House"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb49148573be53040/6986981155a859816ca816be/presobamairaq.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Sam Frizell","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/sam-frizell/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb49148573be53040/6986981155a859816ca816be/presobamairaq.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"President Barack Obama makes a statement on the situation in Iraq on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington on June 13, 2014.","caption":"President Barack Obama makes a statement on the situation in Iraq on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington on June 13, 2014.","creditText":"Nicholas Kamm—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/2893687/obama-foreign-policy-nbc-wsj-poll/","name":"Obama's Foreign Policy Approval Rating Falls to New Low"}}]}] ```