In no other European country has support for American leadership in world affairs dropped as much as in Poland, with only 38 percent of Poles now finding it “desirable,” down from 49 percent in 2011, according to the German Marshall Fund's latest annual survey of transatlantic trends.

Also, in Europe, President Barack Obama was given his lowest favorability rating – 54 percent – in Poland, compared to 82 percent from the continent as a whole.

Just 49 percent of Poles approve of Mr Obama’s international policies, a 16 percentage-point drop since last year while Poland also had the second-lowest level (59 percent) of respondents who believe that the United States and the EU have enough “common interests” to enable international cooperation.

Likewise, the percentage of surveyed Poles who saw “enough common interests” between both continents (59 percent) fell below the Europe-wide average of 66 percent.

Three key incidents

Mr Obama's standing among Poles has no doubt taken a bashing in recent years due to three major incidents.

The first was the US president's cancellation of the missile shield that his predecessor George W. Bush had promised to partially locate in Poland.

Although Mr Obama has his own missile shield plan, which the Polish government says is better for Poland than the one he canceled, the timing of his announcement, on September 17, the anniversary of the Soviet Union's invasion of Poland in World War II, played terribly in Poland.

Then came the damaging visual image of the US president playing golf on the day of the funeral of the late Polish President Lech Kaczyński, who died in the tragic airplane crash in Smolensk. Again it wasn't Mr Obama's fault that his planned trip to Poland to attend the funeral was canceled due to volcanic ash in European skies, but Poles no doubt felt the US president wasn't exactly sharing their pain during that difficult period.

And last but not least, came Mr Obama's unfortunate slip of the tongue when he referred to concentration camps in World War II as “Polish death camps.” Poles were furious.

If Poles were to vote in the upcoming American presidential election, only 35 percent would vote for Barack Obama, and 16 percent would vote for Mitt Romney (the highest percentage in Europe for the Republican candidate). And this was before Mitt Romney's recent trip to Poland. Forty-nine percent did not know who they would vote for.

Poles' opinion of Mr Obama and America seems also to have influenced their view of NATO.

Only 45 percent of Poles now see NATO as still being “essential” to national security. This number has dropped six percentage points since 2011, and is now the lowest in Europe.