As President Barack Obama is looking to thrust the United States ever more into global affairs, from Afghanistan to climate change, the American public is turning more isolationist and unilateralist than it has at any time in decades.

A survey by the Pew Research Center released last week found 49% of Americans think that the United States should “mind its own business internationally” and leave it to other countries to fend for themselves.

It was the first time in more than 40 years of polling that the ranks of Americans with isolationist sentiment outnumbered those with a more international outlook, Pew said.

The United States also is growing more unilateralist, with 44% saying that the country “should go our own way in international matters, not worrying about whether other countries agree with us or not.”

That was the highest percentage since the question was first asked in 1964.

The survey of 2,000 U.S. adults was taken from Oct. 28-Nov. 8 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Oh, yes — China: A plurality of Americans, 44%, now say that China is the world’s top economic power, while just 27% say it’s the United States. That’s a sharp reversal from nearly two years ago, when 41% thought America was the No. 1 economic power, and 30% thought it was China.

FREEP