Poll: Americans Know Little About Latin America

Zogby Interactive has just released the results of a poll that examines the American public's knowledge of Latin America. The polled 7,362 adults nation wide. The results show that the majority of Americans are ignorant when it comes to our Latin neighbors.

When they were asked if they were familiar with Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, just 10% knew he is the President of Brazil. When it comes to knowing that Felipe Calderon is the President of Mexico, they come out a little better at 20%.

They also asked the respondents which Latin American countries were our strongest allies in the region anthey named Mexico as number one and Brazil number two with Costa Rica coming in number three. When asked who were the least friendly, Venezuela and Cuba topped the list with Columbia- which in actuality is one of our biggest supporters in the region- coming in third.

Asked which Latin American countries are the biggest allies to the U.S., Mexico is seen as the top ally, while Brazil is seen as a close second. Costa Rica is seen as the third greatest ally of the U.S. Asked which countries in the region are least friendly to the U.S., Venezuela and Cuba predictably topped the list. But Americans listed Colombia-which has been the U.S.'s closest ally in the past decade-as a distant third.

Columbia gets more foreign aid from the United States, with more than half a billion dollars a year to assist them in fighting drugs and the bands of gorillas. No other country outside of the middle east gets more.

China is making in roads with the countries in Latin America and Americans believe that this is one factor contributing to some of the Latin American countries being hostile to the United States. A majority, 56%, consider it to be a very serious threat.

Breaking that one down demographically, 48% of the liberals think China's involvement is a serious threat as do 76% of the conservatives. Overall, only 10% of the respondents think of China as a danger.

Americans also think it is time to start normalizing relations with Cuba by trying to enter into negotiations with Raul Castro, who is ruling in place of his brother Fidel. There are two different avenues that the respondents feel we should take in relation to Cuba with 58% thinking we should be talking about future diplomatic relations and 56% thinking it is time to remove the travel restrictions and the trade embargo.

On the success of the Bush administration in relation to Latin America, 26% give the President positive marks, 26% think he is doing an adequate job and 60% say just the opposite.

When it comes to whether or not migrant workers from Latin America are good for our economy, 55% say yes and 48% think it is a good idea to establish more free trade agreements with the countries of Latin America. And 33% say it is not a good idea.

Which brings us to th question of NAFTA, the free trade agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico, 48% think it has been harmful to the US, 3% think it has harmed Canada and 12% think Mexico got the worse of the deal and 75% think they made out the best.

The results of these last two questions really do not make sense. The majority say they want more trade agreements and at the same time the majority say they do not like the one we have.

It is evident that the American public knows more about the leaders of countries on the other continents and are very confused about those we share the Western Hemisphere with, the ones we should know the most about.

Source: Zogby http://www.zogby.com/