Our Bad Image in the World is Costing Us

As George W. Bush is meeting with European leaders in Austria today, he may want to know that the image of the U.S. in the world seems to continue it's rapid decline. Apparently Bush appointing his trusted aide, Katherine Hughes, to help improve our image has not been very successful. Today in the Christian Science Monitor they report results of some recent polls.

Results of a new global attitudes survey by the Washington-based Pew Research Center show that a country's image of Americans is at least several percentage points higher than the same country's image of America as a nation. Bush's numbers are below both of those categories.

Another poll published this week by the Harris group shows that Europeans generally pick the US as the world's biggest threat to global security over Iran. This was true even in Britain, although Germans and Italians rank the US below Iran.

The story also asserts that this bad image in the world may be hitting us right in the pocket book in tourism dollars. According to the story, in 2002 the US brought in 9% of international travel. Today the number is down to 6%. According to the Travel Industry Association each percentage drop represents 150,000 jobs and $15 billion in spending.