Released: March 5, 2010

Reviving America's Global Image

The following briefing by President Andrew Kohut was presented to the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight on the work of the Pew Global Attitudes Project and its findings on America’s image in the world.

Thank you for the opportunity to help this committee address the issue of “Restoring America’s Reputation in the World.” The Pew Global Attitudes Project, the largest ever series of continuing multi-national surveys focusing on worldwide issues, has been monitoring views of the United States and of the American people since 2002. It has conducted more than 200,000 interviews in 57 countries.

These surveys chronicled the rise of anti-Americanism around the world for much of the past decade. Favorable ratings of the U.S. plunged in many countries following the invasion of Iraq and remained low through 2008. In 2009, we began to document a revival of America’s global image in many parts of the world reflecting confidence in its new president, Barack Obama.

By mid-2009, opinions of the United States in Western Europe, as well as major countries in Asia and Latin America, were about as positive as they were at the beginning of the decade, before George W. Bush took office. The improvement of the American image was especially evident in Western Europe, where opinion of the U.S. had remained at a low ebb for many years. For example, America’s favorable rating in Germany jumped from 31% in 2008 to 64% in 2009. A comparable increase in positive opinion was apparent in France (42% to 75%). While improvements in the U.S.’s ratings were most dramatic in Western Europe, changes in a positive direction were apparent in major Asian and Latin American countries and elsewhere.

Read complete commentary at pewresearch.org