Trump’s approval reaches 40%: Poll

Washington, Sep 22 (IANS) US President Donald Trump's approval rating has once again reached 40 per cent after he garnered positive reactions for his administration's response to the recent hurricanes, according to a new CNN poll.

A broad 64 per cent of Americans said they approved of how the administration reacted to the storms. Nine in 10 Republicans support his reaction (90 per cent), and even Democrats are evenly divided on Trump's response to the crises, with 44 per cent both approving and disapproving, the poll revealed on Thursday.

However, support for his foreign policy was not clear.

Escalating tensions with North Korea have raised concerns about the country; half of Americans now view Pyongyang as an immediate threat to Washington, climbing from 37 to 50 per cent since April.

A number of Americans believe the crisis can be resolved by economic and diplomatic means alone (43 per cent), sinking to its lowest level yet on this question and down 10 points since 2012, the CNN poll showed.

A majority said they favoured military action (58 per cent) if the US could not accomplish its goals by diplomatic and economic efforts -- up 20 points from 2012.

Still, over six in 10 (63 per cent) said the US should take military action only if other nations support and participate in it. Only three in 10 (29 per cent) said the US should take action unilaterally if it decides to take military action.

Approval for the President overall was divided sharply along party lines: 85 per cent of Republicans approved of his job performance while only 9 per cent of Democrats said the same.

The CNN Poll was conducted by telephone September 17 to 20 among a random national sample of 1,053 adults.