Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily.

Here’s a fairly astonishing survey from the Pew Global Attitudes folks.  When they polled various countries on their general favorability toward the U.S., attitudes were improved since Barack Obama’s election, but for the most part not improved dramatically.  European countries were generally far more favorable toward the U.S. compared to last year, but most of the rest of the world was only moderately more favorable.

But they also asked if respondents were confident that the U.S. would “do the right thing,” and the results there were stunning.  With the sole exception of Israel, every single country registered an increase in confidence toward the U.S.  A few of the increases were moderate (Pakistan, Lebanon), but most of them were stratospheric (Egypt, Spain, Canada, Japan, Brazil).

Time will certainly erode this goodwill.  That’s just the nature of these things.  But for now, the rest of the world has a spectacularly improved view of how they expect the United States to act on the world stage.  As Dan Drezner says, this is a hard measure of Obama’s — and America’s — newfound soft power.

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate