Global Views of U.S. Helped by Obama, Survey Says

July 24, 2009

By BRIAN KNOWLTON

WASHINGTON — A new global survey has found a vast improvement in views of the United States since the election of President Barack Obama. But it also finds broad opposition to one of his key policies — sending more troops to Afghanistan — and confirms a drop in confidence in the United States among Israelis.

Mr. Obama, according to the survey by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, enjoys greater confidence among Germans than does Chancellor Angela Merkel, and among the French than President Nicolas Sarkozy. His election in itself, pollsters found, helped restore the United States’ image abroad to levels unseen since the Clinton years.

Improved attitudes toward the United States were most marked in Western Europe, but also evident in Asia, Africa and Latin America, as well as some predominantly Muslim countries.

In Indonesia, where Mr. Obama spent part of his youth, no fewer than 73 percent of those polled said that his election had directly improved their opinion of the United States.

But the survey, taken among more than 26,000 people in 24 countries, plus the Palestinian territories, found that anti-American animosity remained high in places like Pakistan, Turkey and among Palestinians.

Europeans, in particular, seemed to be responding positively to Mr. Obama. The number of Britons saying that they trusted the American president to do the “right thing” in world affairs soared to 86 percent this year, under Mr. Obama, compared with just 16 percent last year, under President George W. Bush. The increase was slightly larger in both Germany and France.

The right thing numbers also jumped in all Middle Eastern countries surveyed — except Israel, which saw no statistical change.

Mr. Obama’s June 4 speech in Cairo directed to the Muslim world gave his standing a statistically insignificant boost among Palestinians. But Israeli confidence in Mr. Obama to do the right thing slipped from 60 percent before the speech to 49 percent afterward. Israelis were the only people polled who gave the United States lower ratings than in past surveys.

For the first time since Pew began making the comparison, people in Turkey, Egypt, and Indonesia — all predominantly Muslim nations — expressed greater confidence in the American president than in Osama bin Laden.

At home, the president’s approval ratings on the economy have declined in the past month amid lagging recovery. It was unclear whether views overseas might have similarly soured after the Pew polling concluded in mid-June.

“I think that his high rating overseas are in spite of the economy,” said Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Center, based in Washington. “His high ratings reflect personal confidence in him — and a sense that he will be much different than Bush — more multilateral, will seek international approval before using force, ending Guantánamo, getting out of Iraq.”

Announcing the closing of the Guantánamo Bay prison camps and setting a troop-withdrawal deadline in Iraq were the policies that engendered the greatest international support, the poll found. Sending more troops to Afghanistan was the only policy tested that was opposed by majorities in most countries.

The survey, taken from late May to mid-June, had national margins of sampling error of 2 to 4 percentage points. The polling samples in Brazil, China, India and Pakistan were disproportionately urban.