• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, December 4, 2019

Have you heard the joke about five world leaders who walk into a cocktail party? The punchline is the President of the United States.

It's hard to say exactly when the President's visits to global summits became the world's running joke, but the effect is becoming very real for the esteem of the United States that will live long past his term in office.

A survey conducted by Research Intelligencer and Pollfish this morning found Americans aren't laughing about it. They're angry and believe the U.S. is losing its esteem with the rest of the world.

Asked to think of the "USA" as a brand, more two-thirds believe the President's behavior on the world stage has either tarnished, or ruined the brand completely.

Obviously, people in the ad industry know how malleable brand equity is, but they also know it's easier to lose it than to gain it.

And to the extent that the U.S. loses its equity with the rest of the world, it's not leaders like Canada's Justin Trudeau, France's Emmanuel Macron or the U.K.'s Princess Anne who should be snickering. It's Russia's Vladimir Putin who should be laughing all the way to the bank. But that's an inside joke.