Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Sep 28 2005 (IPS) — The image of the United States under President George W. Bush has suffered in Latin America, as well as the Islamic world and Europe, according to a survey released by the Zogby International polling firm in cooperation with the Miami Herald and the University of Miami School of Business Administration.

The survey, which was based on interviews with 523 “opinion leaders” in the public and private sectors, as well as mass media and academia in Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Venezuela, Brazil and Argentina, found Bush to be particularly unpopular, as well as eroding support for close economic ties with the U.S.

More than four out of five respondents (81 percent) gave Bush a negative job approval rating – about 20 percent higher than his current ratings in the U.S. – while a whopping 86 percent said they disagreed with how Bush has handled conflicts in various parts of the world.

The survey also found that slightly more respondents (26 percent) said they favour integrating their national economies more with Europe than with the U.S. (23 percent).

“Clearly, Bush’s presidency has done damage to U.S. prestige in Latin America,” said John Zogby, Zogby International’s CEO. “Their apparent lack of confidence in him is no doubt behind opinion leaders in the region wanting to look elsewhere to form economic alliances.”

“The continuing maturation of the European Union provides Latin America with a viable alternative,” he said.

The latest results were part of a survey conducted between mid-August and mid-September on a range of issues. The first results, which dealt more with intra-Latin American issues, were released Monday.

They found that Chilean President Ricardo Lagos was most highly regarded of all current Latin American leaders by the elite respondents. He was the top choice as a “model” of leadership for about one third of the respondents, followed by Brazilian President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva, who was favoured by 18 percent, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe (12 percent), Mexican President Vicente Fox (9 percent), and Argentine President Nestor Kirchner (7 percent).

Bringing up the rear were Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (5 percent), Cuban President Fidel Castro (3 percent), and Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo, who had the support of only one percent of the respondent pool.

According to the poll, Lagos was most highly rated for his ability to “get results”, while Lula gained his greatest support for his ability to work with regional and world leaders.

The earlier results also showed strong support among elites for free trade with the U.S., with more than half of Chileans and Venezuelans saying that Latin America can benefit from such agreements with the U.S. Only about a third of Mexican respondents, by contrast, agreed, although that was up substantially from 21 percent in 2003.

For the entire group of respondents, 54 percent said the U.S. would benefit more from free trade with the region, while only nine percent said Latin America would benefit more. One third said both sides would benefit.

Asked what kind of changes the U.S. should make in its economic relationship with Latin America, 47 percent said Washington should seek more balanced ties with the region, while 22 percent said the goal should be to create an EU-style hemispheric union.

The latest results showed that leaders in the region, particularly in Chile, are optimistic about their economic prospects but divided on specific trade strategies to pursue. Apart from the 49 percent who said they wanted to integrate their economies more closely with the EU or the U.S., another 23 percent said they favoured greater integration with other Latin American economies, while 20 percent said they wanted their countries to be more economically self-reliant.

Thirty-seven percent said they believe China, which has shown growing interest in investing in Latin America, will eventually become a major economic partner with countries in the region. But only five percent said they favoured greater economic integration with Beijing.

This relative lack of support may be attributable to fears that China is emerging more as a competitor than as a partner, according to Zogby. Fifty-six percent of the elite group already sees Beijing as economic competition.

Two-thirds of respondents said they believe that the U.S. should pay more attention to Latin America “because they are strategic partners in trade and the war on terrorism”, while 21 percent said they think Washington should instead work on reducing its trade deficit with China and resolving conflicts in the Middle East.

As to Bush’s policies toward the region in particular, 50 percent of respondents said they were worse than of his recent predecessors, 42 percent said they were about the same, and only six percent said they were better. The most negative attitudes were found in Mexico, where two-thirds of respondents said Bush’s policies were worse.

Nearly 80 percent of Mexican respondents rated his job performance as poor, while respondents in Colombia, Venezuela, and Chile gave him significantly better ratings.