U.S. President Barack Obama meets Chinese President Xi Jinping at The Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands in Rancho Mirage, California June 7, 2013.KEVIN LAMARQUE/Reuters
Politics Insider delivers premium analysis and access to Canada's policymakers and politicians. Visit the Politics Insider homepage for insight available only to subscribers.
Canadians aren't alone in feeling ignored by Americans.
Despite shelling out tax dollars on ad campaigns to constantly remind their neighbours to the south that the nations are allies and trading partners and (in the most recent pitch) that Alberta oil is right next door, Canadians feel they get cold-shouldered even more than other nations that routinely cast themselves as near and dear to U.S. interests.
Canadians, more than most, also believe China will eclipse the United States as the world's pre-eminent superpower and have significantly more confidence in President Barack Obama than Americans have. Those findings emerge from the most recent international poll by the Pew Research Center, conducted in 39 countries with more than 37,000 respondents earlier this spring.
Compared to other countries that consider themselves in the U.S. inner circle of allies and friends, Canadians felt more ignored, albeit often only by small margins. Canadian respondents – by a margin of two to one – said the U.S. doesn't consider Canada's interests.
In Canada, 66 per cent of respondents said the United States paid little or no regard to Canada. An equal percentage of Canadians felt the same way about China.
The Pew poll found marginally more respondents in France, Poland, Britain, Israel, Italy and Germany felt Washington cared more about their nation's interests.
"Around the world, many believe the U.S. acts in its own self interests in global affairs, ignoring other countries," Pew said in a statement summarizing the poll's key findings.
Canadians were also among those who believe China has already – or will soon – become the world's most leading power. Fully 67 per cent of Canadians believe China will eclipse the United States.
Only in Spain, out of 39 nations surveyed, did a larger percentage of respondents – 71 per cent – believe China had, or would, supplant the United States.
The two-thirds majority of Canadians who said China will eclipse the United States was up sharply from the last time the question was asked – in 2009 – when half of Canadian respondents expected it would happen.
Americans were evenly divided as to whether it will ever happen. But it was among Japanese and Filipinos, both populations with far closer and more complicated relationships to both great powers, who felt most strongly that China would never replace the United States as the planet's dominant power.
On other issues, Canadian views of their much larger and more powerful neighbour remained broadly favourable with 64 per cent of reporting a positive view of the United States.
President Barack Obama also scored well higher, with 81 per cent of Canadians voicing confidence in his handling of global affairs, although that's a decline from the 88 per cent recorded in 2009 when he was newly elected. Still, the president rated much better among Canadians than among Americans, where only 57 per cent said he would "do the right thing in world affairs."
But if much of the world still regards the United States – and its president – favourably, that's not the case among many majority Muslim nations. "As has been the case in recent years, America's image is the most negative in parts of the Muslim world, especially Pakistan (11 per cent favorable), Jordan (14 per cent), Egypt (16 per cent), and the Palestinian territories (16 per cent)," Pew reported. "But the Muslim world is hardly monolithic, and America receives largely positive ratings in predominantly Muslim nations such as Senegal in West Africa and Indonesia and Malaysia in Southeast Asia."
Paul Koring reports from the Washington bureau.