Criticism of America- Argentina

When searching, I found this Argentinian news website/blog which had two related articles on anti-Americanism in Argentina: http://www.argentinepost.com/2007/11/argentina-the-worlds-most-anti-american-country.html and http://www.argentinepost.com/2007/12/argentinas-anti-americanism-part-2.html. Both articles were written in 2007. I choose these as examples which offer criticism of America because I was surprised by the statistics presented in the article.

The poll results (taken from The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, WorldPublicOpinion.org and Pew Global Attitudes Survey, all from 2007) in the articles suggest that Argentina is one of the most anti-American countries. It states that 84% do not trust the US to act responsibly in the world and 69% didn’t trust them at all (the most out of all countries who participated). They were in the top two countries with the largest majority to say that the US 'should withdraw from most efforts solve international problems'. Argentina also had the largest majority saying that they should reduce their overseas military bases. While only 10% of Argentina saythey have a positive outlook on the 'spread of US ideas'. One poll even shows that they have the worse view of America outside the Middle East: 72% have an unfavourable view of the US and only 16% have a favourable view.

These results clearly show that Argentina severly dislike the US. However, the article suggests that Argentinians mainly hate the US government while they still like American culture in general: they 'devour US cultural exports, moving in massive numbers to see Hollywood films, and attend concerts by US musicians. They buy American cars, trucks, video games, iPods, computers and, inexplicably, seem to like McDonalds even more than Americans do'.

So why do they hate America so much? The article gives the answer 'America’s arrogant foreign policy, its heavy-handed and excessively partial negotiating tactics, its lack of patience and unwillingness to listen to opposing views, and, of course, the Iraq war'. The articles says that even the mention and use of the term 'American' is offensive; this suggests that Argentinians hate to be associated with America, their proximity to eachother doesn't help. Also, it suggests that since Bush was president relations have become more strained. One poll says that 53% Argentinians said that environmetal problems is the worlds top threat; therefore with the US being the biggest polluter this explains the hate, the hate of Bush's environmental policies is also a factor. The Iraq war is unfavourable in Argentina. I think that another factor is that the US were tough on Argentina during their 2001-02 political and financial crisis.

Despite all this, I find it difficult to believe that Argentina feel as strongly as the poll and article suggests. The article is only the view of one person, and interestingly the author is an American working in Argentina and writing for an Argentinian website. However their view seems informed as it is influenced by people living in Argentina and the author seems to be on their side. Plus, the poll results were official and therefore valid.