The U.S. government continues to face a crisis of public trust as well as significant opposition to federal workforce and funding cuts enacted by the second Trump administration. While this trust gap is not unique to the U.S., new survey results suggest the American government has lower trust than many other democracies around the world.
These results suggest that distrust in our government is not a universal or static condition. With strong leadership and a commitment to effectively serving the public, trust in the federal government can be improved.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development just released new poll results that measure public trust in national governments for 38 countries. The U.S. did not participate in the project. However, the Partnership for Public Service conducted a separate survey this spring that asked an identical question, enabling us to approximate how the U.S. results compare with the other countries that did participate.
In the Partnership’s survey, only 27% of the public said they trust the federal government. At that level, the U.S. would rank 31st out of 39 countries when compared with the countries in the OECD study. That would be tied with Latvia and just ahead of Chile at 26%.
At 27%, the level of trust in the federal government was slightly lower than it was in the Partnership’s 2025 survey, when 33% of the U.S. public expressed trust.
The most recent OECD surveys were mostly conducted in late 2025, several months prior to the latest Partnership survey—a difference that must be considered when comparing results. However, since the survey wording was identical, such a comparison gives important context for the U.S. in relation to other governments.
At 62%, Switzerland was the country with the highest level of support of the OECD countries. That was followed by Iceland at 59% and Norway at 57%. Our neighbors, Mexico and Canada, were fifth at 53% and eighth at 50%, respectively. Overall, OECD found that a major driver of trust involved perceptions of a government’s ability to conduct long-term policymaking.
When the Partnership made a similar comparison in 2022, the U.S. ranked slightly higher. Then, 40% of Americans trusted the government, which would have ranked the U.S. 23rd out of 41 countries surveyed, had they been included in the OECD project at the time.
The relationship between a government and those it serves is critical for the success of any democracy. The Partnership will continue to study the public’s views about our federal government and will release a new report focusing on levels of trust in the coming months.