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Some 70% of Americans rated US-Germany relations as good, while 73% of Germans said relations were bad – which Pew says is "a sharp increase in negative since 2017 ". Last year, 56% of Germans said that their country's relations with the United States were bad.
The survey, conducted by telephone in September with 1,006 adults in the United States and 1,002 respondents in Germany, revealed that "Americans and Germans are worlds apart from the perspective of relations between their countries".
Interviewees were not only divided on bilateral relations, but also on the importance of how they attach to each other's foreign policy and on the point of knowing whether the two countries should cooperate more or less.
While 70% of Americans said that the US should cooperate more with Germany, only 41% of Germans thought that their country should cooperate more with the United States.
As for the main foreign policy partners, the Germans continued to identify France as the most important or second-largest partner, Pew said, while 35% of respondents mentioned the United States as against 43% in 2017.
For the Americans, the United Kingdom, China and Canada were among the top three countries mentioned. Only 9% of them said that Germany was an important partner.
A vast majority of Germans have said they want greater independence from the US in foreign policy, while most Americans want to stay close to Europe.
However, despite the clear differences in the survey, US and German citizens found a "ground of agreement" on the importance of NATO, on the benefits of free trade and commerce. on defense spending, said the Pew report.
While the US and German views were similar in terms of defense spending, Pew pointed out that "opinions have changed considerably in both countries over the past year".
The Germans, they said, were more likely to say that their country should increase defense spending (43% – compared to 32% last year), with fewer Americans – 39% – believing that European allies must increase spending, which was down 45% in 2017.
