For Brazil and the Rest of the World, the US (and Obama) Is Tops

Dilma Rousseff arrives in the United States this Sunday. On Tuesday, she will meet Barack Obama, late by almost two years, since the visit was cancelled in 2013 on account of Edward Snowden’s revelations that the Americans had spied on the Brazilian president. Much indignation! Wiretapping’s in the past. Dilma wants to mend relations with Washington, and during the visit, she could take a look at a recently published Pew Center poll, confirming how much the world, in particular Brazilians, likes the United States and Barack Obama.

Anti-Americanism is a worn-out product and counterproductive. In the poll, carried out in 40 countries, popular disgust with the Americans is in just a handful. In particular, in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, just 15 percent of those polled had a positive view of the U.S. as a consequence of the Ukrainian crisis. With good taste, the Brazilians come in higher than the average approval rating of 69 percent (24 percent disapproval). In Brazil, 73 percent are positive, and 24 percent are negative. Another piece of good news is that Brazilians are the most favorable to the U.S. of any of the six Latin American countries polled. The greatest antipathy is among Argentines.

In the global average, this represents an improvement of 5 points as compared to last year: in the case of Brazil, a jump of 8 points in one year; last year, the image of the U.S. in Brazil was at about 62 percent approval. Since then, various highs and lows have occurred up until the current 73 percent. It was a year of a spectacular jump in approval of America in India (from 55 percent to 70 percent), which proved the success of U.S. efforts to get closer to the emerging giant.

At home, the U.S. president would have liked to have had the global approval rating (65 percent) he has abroad. In a Gallup poll, only 35 percent of Americans approved of his foreign policy. Let’s not even mention Dilma’s. The American image improved greatly since the 2008 poll when the Bush government was in power and the U.S. image was under the impact of the Iraq war. There were fewer countries in the poll eight years back. At any rate, today, there is wide satisfaction with U.S. foreign policy, with ample support for the combat of the terror of the Islamic State movement.

The poll offers an essential lesson for Dilma Rousseff. Investing in better relations with the U.S. should not merely be a question of business. The immense majority of Brazilians see the U.S. as a model. Obviously, there is global criticism of the use of torture, such as the interrogation methods used after the events of 9/11, but the U.S. received solid good grades from the world with respect to the individual freedoms of its citizens (63 percent versus 22 percent).

Above, I presented information about the favorable image the U.S. enjoys among Brazilians (73 percent approval). It is amazing when we separate this into age groups. The approval rating would be as follows: 60 percent among people older than 50; 74 percent among the ages of 30 and 49; and 84 percent among people aged 18 to 29. Anti-Americanism is over.