Fear of the U.S. is on the rise in many counties, including Canada and Turkey, according to a global survey released Tuesday.
The Washington, DC-based Pew Research Center surveyed 41,953 people in 38 countries during a span of about 11 weeks to ascertain what were seen as top threats around the world.
In Canada and Turkey, the United States was perceived as a bigger threat to their security than Russia or China.
Of those surveyed, 38 percent of Canadians, who share the longest undefended border in the world with Americans, said U.S. power and influence was among the leading national security risks. That is up from 23 percent in a 2013 survey.
In Turkey, U.S. influence was named the number one threat.
“A year after a failed coup attempt blamed at least in part on the U.S.,” Jacob Poushter and Dorothy Manevich, co-authors of the report, wrote about the survey on the Pew Research Center’s website that “72 percent in Turkey say American power and influence is a major threat to their country.
“This figure is up 28 percentage points since 2013, when just 44 percent named U.S. power and influence as a major threat. People in Turkey are also worried about the refugee issue (64 percent major threat), which has spilled over their borders in recent years.”
With an ocean between Canada and Europe, only 25 percent of Canadians felt refugees posed a threat to their country.
Since the election of Donald Trump as president, the survey found favorable impressions of the U.S. have fallen. Many countries now name the U.S. as a threat, in some cases like Canada and Turkey, America is more of a concern than Russia or China, the survey found.
But terrorism and global warming were the main overall threats.
“People around the globe identify ISIS and climate change as the leading threats to national security,” Poushter and Manevich wrote, referring to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or Daesh.
However, the authors of the report said that due to “heightened security concerns”, opinions of Daesh were not asked in Turkey.
“ISIS is named as the top threat in a total of 18 countries surveyed – mostly concentrated in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the United States,” the co-authors wrote.
Global climate change was the second highest threat named in 13 countries. It was the major fear in Canada, at 60 percent, while in Turkey, the figure was 53 percent.
In all, those surveyed were asked to rank eight threats – Daesh, climate change, cyberattacks from other countries, the condition of the global economy, the large number of refugees, U.S. power and influence, Russia’s power and influence and China’s power and influence.
The survey was conducted between Feb. 16 and May 8.
