BERLIN, Aug. 8 (UPI) -- Favorable views of the United States have fallen to record lows in Germany, the lowest approval of any European country, a Pew Research poll has found.
Just 30 percent of Germans polled had favorable views of the United States, Richard Wike, senior researcher at the Pew Research Center in Washington, told Deutsche Welle.
By comparison, he said U.S. State Department polling in 2000 showed 78 percent of Germans had favorable views of the country.
Alexander Hose, a foreign policy expert at the University of Cologne, told the network there were differing views on economic and social policies.
"Germans don't need American protection anymore -- or so they believe," Hose said. "America is now just seen as the 300-pound gorilla throwing its weight around. Nobody likes that."
Andrei Markovits, a professor of Comparative Politics and German Studies at the University of Michigan, told the broadcaster the United States has long been associated with modernity in Europe, so anti-U.S. sentiment has been around for centuries, "at the latest by July 5, 1776."
