Despite diplomatic summits and presidential visits, the image of U.S. leadership is losing ground in Africa and Asia, according to a Gallup poll result released on Thursday.
Even though the U.S. hosted its first U.S.-Africa summit last August in a bid to strengthen ties with the region, median approval of the U.S. leadership in Africa dropped to 59 percent, the lowest point in the history of the trend, the poll showed.
At the same time, the image of U.S. leadership did not appear to benefit from U.S. President Barack Obama's attempts to "rebalance" relations in Asia, despite Obama's two trips to the region. In fact, the 39 percent median approval in 2014 is a six-percentage-point drop to the same level observed in 2011.
Some of the biggest losses in approval in 2014 took place in former Soviet republics in Central Asia, where the crisis in Ukraine and U.S. tensions with Russia cast a shadow over relations. [ Kazakhstan led the region -- and the world -- in declines, with approval ratings of the U.S. dropping 28 percentage points between 2013 and 2014. There were also double-digit declines in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
After several years of stagnant ratings in the Americas, median approval of the U.S. inched upward to 44 percent in 2014. Notably within the region, there was a double-digit increase in approval in Brazil and a double-digit decrease in Haiti.
Nearly half of Brazilians in 2014 said they approved of U.S. leadership, up from 32 percent the previous year. This 16-point increase in approval in 2014 suggests the public's attitudes were beginning to thaw after the serious diplomatic fallout in 2013 following revelations that the U.S. National Security Agency had spied on Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.
