Majorities in many countries disapprove of U.S drone strikes

The survey can be found here. Europeans and Japanese remain largely confident in Obama although this confidence has declined in most countries since 2009. Most Muslim countries remain critical of his leadership.

Some of the results show that many of those surveyed must not pay any heed to actual statistics. For example in Europe 62 per cent of Germans think that China not the U.S. is the top economic power. 58 per cent in Britain and 57 per cent in Spain think the same. However measured by GDP the U.S. is about twice as powerful as China. See this site. No doubt China is growing more quickly than the U.S but that is quite a different matter.

On U.S. use of drone strikes in the war on terror there is widespread disapproval except in the U.S. The U.S, is the only place where more approve then disapprove their use.

In the U.S. 62 per cent approve of the strikes. The percentage approval is greatest among Republicans (74 per cent), Independents (60 per cent) and there is even a majority among Democrats (58 per cent)

In the other 19 countries surveyed the best approval rate is the UK with 44 per cent approving but 47 per cent disapproval. After the UK majorities disapprove of the attacks. Germany is 59 per cent disapproval and 38 per cent approval. France has an even higher disapproval rate at 63 per cent with37 per cent approval.

In Asia China has a 55 per cent disapproval and 25 per cent approve. Next door to the U.S. Mexico has 73 per cent disapproval and 24 per cent approval.

In South America Brazil has 76 per cent disapproval and only 19 per cent approval. Russians disapprove by 68 per cent with only 17 per cent approving.

Arab countries such as Egypt have high disapproval rates. Egyptians disapprove by 89 per cent to only 6 approving. The highest disapproval rate is in Greece with 90 per cent disapproving and only 5 per cent approving. For more see the full poll results.