Gallup's annual World Affairs survey, conducted in February of each year, is one of my favorites. It is in this survey that we ask Americans about issues of global magnitude including how they view other countries and how the world views the U.S.
This year's survey came at a particularly good time, allowing us to provide fresh numbers on how Americans view Egypt (less favorably this year than ever before) and their perception of how important what happens there to the U.S. (not as important as what happens in eight other countries).
On the broad measure of favorability, Iran and North Korea fare worst while Canada and Great Britain fare best. While Americans are pretty fixed on their least- and most-favored countries, this year they are notably more negative about Mexico, Afghanistan, and Pakistan and notably more positive about France and South Korea.
While China is in the middle of the pack on overall favorability, Americans see it as the world's clear No. 1 economically. In a stunning shift from a year ago, Americans are far more likely to say China is the world's leading economic power in the world today and that it will be 20 years from now than they are to say this about the U.S. The value of asking the same question every year is that it allows us to identify emerging trends in attitudes and also to distinguish short-term variations from sustained changes in public opinion.
In the coming days, we'll continue to release new findings from this year's World Affairs survey, including Americans' views on:
- The U.S.' position in the world today
- How much world leaders respect President Barack Obama
- How involved the U.S. should be in solving the world's problems
- The country they consider to be the U.S.' greatest enemy
- What foreign trade means for America
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To view the complete calendar for surveys Gallup conducts annually, as well as all of our annual trends, please visit Gallup.com Trends A-Z.