Release date: Aug. 24, 2004

U.S.-European Relations Unlikely to Improve, Says Emory Expert

European dislike of American presidents is nothing new, but what's changed is the intensity and increase of anti-American sentiment gernerally, says Christian Tuschhoff, an expert on international politics at Emory University.

Tuschhoff, who has done detailed studies on Ronald Reagan's foreign policy, says that like President George W. Bush, "Reagan during his first term had the ideology and language of confrontation. But the biggest distinction between the two is that by and large, Reagan was a passive president who came across badly. Bush is much more active in foreign policy and has more of a dominance approach than Reagan."

Tuschhoff, who just returned from three months in Europe, says "Europeans hate Bush more than Reagan. They understand that the United States has political leaders they dislike, but they thought Reagan was an agreeable man. Bush has a likeability problem. Apart from Tony Blair, European nations are not prepared to work with him, or only at the very minimum level."

Another new element Tuschhoff found is that the criticism of the Bush administration is now shifting toward an anti-American sentiment generally. "They say the American public and voters should hold the President accountable since they voted for him. They don't see that the country is deeply divided politically."

A third new element in European attitudes Tuschhoff observed is the separation between 9/11 and the war in Iraq. "Americans see these two events as part of the same issue, but there's a big distinction between the two in the minds of most Europeans," he says.

Ironically, says Tuschhoff, "the entire transatlantic agenda is preoccupied with foreign policy; the economic agenda has been marginalized. Actually, Europe is in much more in agreement with Bush than Kerry on economic issues. Bush is pro-free trade, while Kerry is more protectionist. America's huge trade deficit benefits Europeans enormously. If America moves toward protectionism, Europe will lose its market share here. But the issue is totally ignored in Europe."

No matter who is elected in November, Tuschhoff says he doesn't see the "Europe-U.S. relationship getting better anytime soon, although Bush has become "much more multilateral" and a Kerry administration "may spur more dialogue on the security side."

What divides America from its European allies is something more intractible than who is president: a fundamental distinction in the way foreign policy is approached. Europeans believe that foreign policy should be based on norms or rules of international law, while Americans contend that policy be based on moral rather than legal principles. That distinction, says Tuschhoff, is critical and unlikely to change in the near future.

Tuschhoff, who has been a research scholar at the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies and a German Academic Exchange Service scholar, can be reached at 404-727-6969 or ctuschh@emory.edu.

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