The U.S. reputation is back to where it once eight years ago before President Bush took office. Pew finds the “belief that Obama “will do the right thing in world affairs” is nearly universal among European allies, where “lack of confidence in President Bush had been almost as prevalent for much of his time in office.” U.S. favorability ratings have surged in France, Germany and Spain. Only thirty-nine percent of Frenchmen were thumbs-up on the U.S. in `06. Seventy-five percent of the French are now confident that America is going to do the right thing. U.S. approval in Germany jumped from 37 percent to 64 percent during the past three years, while Spain’s numbers went from 23 percent to 58 percent.
U.S. popularity is up in Britain, Russia, China, India, Japan, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, South Korea, Kenya, Nigeria and Indonesia since Obama took over.
The Middle East is the only part of the world that is not cheering America’s President. Obama scores a 27 percent positive rating in Egypt, 25 percent in Jordan, 14 percent in Turkey and 15 percent in the Palestinian territories. Those numbers are up only slightly since 2007.
Obama has lost ground in Israel since his June 4 speech to the Arab World. Seventy-six percent of Israelis liked Obama pre-speech. That number fell to 63 percent after it. Confidence that Obama will do the right thing dipped from 60 percent pre-speech to 49 percent post-speech.
It's going to take more than a new face to improve U.S. standing to the realists in the Middle East. U.S. actions (Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and Israel/Palestinian conflict) are front and center.
(Image via i-italy.org)
