WASHINGTON — People around the globe widely expect the next American president to improve the country’s policies toward the rest of the world, especially if Barack Obama is elected, yet they retain a persistently poor image of the U.S., according to a poll released Thursday.
The survey of two dozen countries, conducted this spring by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, also found a growing despondency over the international economy. Majorities in 18 nations called domestic economic conditions poor.
In more bad news for the U.S., people shared a widespread sense that the American economy was hurting their countries, including large majorities in U.S. allies Britain, Germany, Australia, Turkey, France and Japan.
Even six in 10 Americans agreed that the U.S. economy was having a negative impact abroad.
Image is slightly better
Views of the U.S. improved or stayed the same as last year in 18 nations, the first positive signs the poll has found for the U.S. image worldwide this decade. Even so, many improvements were modest, and the U.S. remains less popular in most countries than it was before it invaded Iraq in 2003, with majorities in only eight expressing favorable opinions.
Substantial numbers in most countries said they are closely following the U.S. presidential election, including 83 percent in Japan — about the same proportion who said so in the U.S. Of those watching the campaign, optimism that the new president will reshape American foreign policy for the better is significant, with the largest segment of people in 14 countries — including the U.S. — saying so.
Andrew Kohut, president of Pew, said many seem to be hoping the U.S. role in the world will improve with the departure of President Bush, who remains profoundly unpopular almost everywhere.
“People think the U.S. wants to run the world,” Kohut said. “It’s not more complicated than that.”
Among those tracking the American election, more people in 20 countries expressed more confidence in Obama, the likely Democratic nominee, than in John McCain, the Republican candidate, to handle world affairs properly. The two contenders were tied in the U.S., Jordan and Pakistan.
The polling was conducted March 17 through April 21, mostly in April, interviewing adults face to face in 17 countries and by telephone in the remaining seven. Local languages were used.
The number interviewed in each country ranged from 700 in Australia to 3,212 in China. All samples were national except for China, Pakistan, India and Brazil, where the samples were mostly urban. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3 or 4 percentage points in every country but China and India, where it was 2 points.
