This is how the rest of the world sees the threat from the US — and it isn’t good

Christian Lowe
Apr 2, 2018 9:48 AM PDT
1 minute read
This is how the rest of the world sees the threat from the US — and it isn’t good

SUMMARY

A recent poll from the Pew Research Center shows some pretty surprising statistics when it comes to how countries see the threats around them. Pew says that most of the world thinks terrorism from the ISIS is the biggest threat to securit…

A recent poll from the Pew Research Center shows some pretty surprising statistics when it comes to how countries see the threats around them.


Pew says that most of the world thinks terrorism from the ISIS is the biggest threat to security, followed closely by climate change.

But when researchers dug deeper and asked major countries — including longtime U.S. allies — how they saw the influence of the United States, China and Russia, the results were a major bummer for Uncle Sam.

The country most fearful of the United States is Turkey, with 72 percent of those surveyed seeing the U.S. as a major threat.

Don't believe 'em for a second. (U.S. Army photo)

By a large margin, NATO ally Greece sees the U.S. as a "major threat" to their country, with 44 percent of those surveyed worried about too much U.S. influence as opposed to 22 percent who see the U.S. as a minor threat. And that's 5 percentage points lower than a similar survey three years ago.

In a true head scratcher, 59 percent of Spaniards see the U.S. as a major threat — a 42 percent swing over the 2013 survey. Are there some plans lurking around to lure Lionel Messi to the U.S. we don't know about?

"The proportion of the public that views American power as a major threat to their country grew in 21 of the 30 nations between 2013 and 2017," Pew says.

Ouch.

But hey, at least we got Poland and India who each swung 8 percentage points more in favor of the U.S. than three years ago — with 15 and 19 percent seeing the U.S. as a major threat respectively.

Shockingly, fewer Russians see the U.S. as a major threat than do Canadians, with 39 percent of our northern brothers seeing the U.S. as a major threat as opposed to 37 percent of Russians.

"Just in the past year, perceptions of the U.S. as a major threat have increased by at least 8 percentage points among several long-standing American allies, including Australia (13 points) and the UK (11 points)," Pew said. "Concern about U.S. power is up 10 points in Canada, Germany and Sweden, and 8 points in France and the Netherlands."

Guarding the perimeter against a Chinese attack ... or from the Yanks? (U.S. Army photo)

Japan? Don't get us started on Japan. The Pew survey finds about the same amount of Japanese think the U.S. is a major threat at 62 percent as they see China as a major threat, with 64 percent saying Beijing worries the heck out of them.

Ugh.

But, hey, we've always got Israel, right? Just 17 percent of Israelis see the U.S. as a major threat with neighbor Jordan coming in at 24 percent. So at least we got that going for us.

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