Anti-Americanism may be resurfacing in Europe after a pause in rhetorical attacks on the United States after Barack Obama won the presidency in November 2008.
“The highly vaunted transatlantic honeymoon may be coming to an end,” writes Soeren Kern, senior fellow for transatlantic relations at the Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group in Madrid. In recent weeks, “European media have started publishing stories that criticize Obama and once again cast the United States in a negative light.”
Kern’s article contains a selection of European news stories that “typify what seems to be a general trend toward a return to more negative reporting about America, its people and its president.”
The article was published shortly before the Pew Research Center’s annual global attitudes survey indicated that people polled in 25 countries had a more positive attitude toward the United States, with the notable exception of Israel. Kern speculated, however, that the more critical attitude of the European media might be “a harbinger of things to come.”
