U.S., Canadian and Mexican flags hang at Mexico City’s Palacio Nacional for the North American Leaders’ Summit on January 10, 2023. A 2025 poll found that Mexicans and Canadians are more likely to consider the United States their countries’ top threat than they are to consider it their top ally. File Photo courtesy Mexican President Press Office | License Photo
People from the United States’ two closest neighbors — Canada and Mexico — are more likely to view the country as their greatest threat, not their greatest ally, according to a poll released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center.
According to the survey, 59% of Canadians and 68% of Mexicans view the United States as their countries’ greatest threat. Meanwhile, 55% of Canadians and 37% of Mexicans view their neighbor as their most important ally.
The figures come from a survey that asked people from across the globe which countries have the most important relationship and which constitute the greatest threat to their own.
Of the 24 non-U.S. countries included in the survey, 12 said the United States was their country’s most important ally, including Israel (95%), South Korea (89%), Japan (78%), Britain (51%), Poland (43%), Italy (42%), Australia (35%) and India (35%). The United States tied as the top ally with other countries in Kenya (38%), Nigeria (30%) and Hungary (23%).
Several countries that consider the United States their top ally also view the country as their biggest threat. Canada was the most divided with 55% of people seeing the United States as a top ally and 59% seeing it as the biggest threat. Argentina, Brazil, Kenya and Mexico similarly had polarized views of the United States.
Three other countries — South Africa (35%), Indonesia (40%) and Spain (31%) — also viewed the United States as a top threat, but didn’t have such a favorable view of the country to balance that out.
The country with the most favorable view of the United States was Israel, with 95% viewing it as an ally and 1% viewing it as a threat. Mexico, meanwhile, had the least favorable responses, 37% viewing the United States as an ally and 68% a threat.
Six countries — Germany, France, Sweden, Greece, the Netherlands and Turkey — didn’t consider the United States either their top ally or top threat.
People in the United States were most likely to view China and Russia as their country’s top threat, with Republicans more likely to be wary of China and Democrats more likely to name Russia. Concerning allies, 18% of Americans named Britain, 12% named Canada and 9% named Israel.
Pew Research Center polled thousands of people from each of the 25 countries considered in the poll in the first half of 2025.
