Anti-American sentiment

Anti-Americanism, anti-American sentiment, or sometimes Americanophobia, is dislike of or opposition to the governmental policies of the United States, especially regarding the foreign policy, or the American people in general.

Political scientist Brendon O'Connor of the United States Studies Centre suggests that anti-Americanism cannot be isolated as a consistent phenomenon and that the term originated as a rough composite of stereotypes, prejudices and criticisms evolving to more politically based criticism. French scholar Marie-France Toinet says use of the term anti-Americanism "is only fully justified if it implies systematic opposition – a sort of allergic reaction – to America as a whole".

Discussions on anti-Americanism have in most cases lacked a precise explanation of what the sentiment entails (other than a general disfavor), which has led to the term being used broadly and in an impressionistic manner, resulting in the inexact impressions of the many expressions described as anti-American. William Russell Melton argues that criticism largely originates from the perception that the U.S. wants to act as a "world policeman".

Negative views of the United States are generally strongest in the Arab world, China, former Soviet countries, certain European nations, and North Korea, and weakest in Sub-Saharan Africa and most parts of Southeast Asia.

In the online Oxford Dictionary the term "anti-American" is defined as "hostile to the interests of the United States".

In the first edition of Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language (1828) the term "anti-American" was defined as "opposed to America, or to the true interests or government of the United States; opposed to the revolution in America". In France the use of the noun form 'antiaméricanisme' has been catalogued from 1948, entering ordinary political language in the 1950s.

A poll conducted in 2017^[update] by the BBC World Service of 19 countries, 4 countries rated U.S. influence positively, while 14 leaned negatively, and 1 was divided.

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