US gets the cold shoulder

There's no barbed wire on America's border with Canada. But there is a new chill in relations.

The United States has lost friends here during the past year - and around the world.

The US is attempting to counter the ill-will with glossy commercials produced by a former advertising executive now working for the State Department.

But even in the US, it is realised that the country's incredible cultural, economic and military power might be garnering fear instead of respect.

Cross-border tensions

For years, Michel Jalbert has been driving just a few metres across the border from Canada into the US to fill his truck with cheaper petrol.

The rules say you are supposed to check in at the American frontier post down the road - but nobody ever used to bother.

Then, as he explained to us, a few months ago US immigration agents lurking in the woods pounced on him. He ended up spending 35 days in an American jail.

"People around here aren't angry at the United States, just at the authorities," he said.

"I've done nothing to harm them. I've been doing this for 15 or 20 years. That's what hurts people."

The Canadian-US border has always been known as the "Friendly Border", an invisible line separating these two close allies. They even build houses straddling the border.

Broader criticism of the US is phrased politely, but Canadians complain of increasing arrogance and aggression in US foreign policy:

"We do not understand why they want war, except to get more petroleum," said Denis Dumont, taking time out from the national pastime of hockey.

"This is a question, not just a question of security. This is more a question of money than anything else," he added.

New enemies

For a time after 11 September, it seemed the world was with the United States.

Foreign leaders queued up to support the war on terror. Relations with Russia were transformed. The war in Afghanistan won widespread backing.

But America and its allies continued to be terrorist targets - whether it was in Bali, or the attack on Israeli tourists at Mombasa in Kenya.

Osama Bin Laden is apparently still out there, as elusive as ever, but President Bush seems eager to move on to new enemies.

Saddam Hussein has become the focus of American attention - while Washington seems to neglect the Arab-Israel conflict.

A new national strategy document asserts the supremacy of American values, pledges to maintain American superiority and threatens pre-emptive action against anyone who challenges the United States.

Charm offensive

"When you combine as much military power as America has with a statement of blustery leadership, then countries begin to fear America more than they respect it," said Charles Kupchan with the Council on Foreign Relations.

Hard evidence for that comes in a new global survey by the Pew Research Centre.

Over the past two years the unpopularity of the United States has increased in 19 of 27 countries studied.

Things are particularly bad with two of America's key Muslim allies - only 6% of Egyptians and 10% of Pakistanis have a favourable opinion of the US.

But worldwide the vast majority do like American movies, television and technology.

We put those numbers to Charlotte Beers. She has been recruited by the US State Department from a top advertising job on Madison Avenue to brush up America's image.

"I don't think that it's too surprising that in this unique role as the world's superpower that people see that as a lightning rod for all things that are wrong in their lives," Ms Beers said.

And she added that the survey showed a great deal of discontent in the world by people with their own countries and their lives.

One answer - a series of paid messages the US Government is broadcasting on the TV stations of Muslim nations.

They stress how well treated Muslims are in the United States.

The critics say the glossy films do not tackle the roots of anti-Americanism. Charlotte Beers insists they are dealing with important issues.

"It is extremely dangerous to ignore groups of people who are busy creating misperceptions about the United States so that it becomes part of a cause of fanatics," she said.

Going it alone

If you want to find out what people love and hate about the United States, don't go to the State Department or the White House but rather go to that great American institution: the shopping mall.

The mall is the home of American culture. It is where you will find the shops, the movies, the fast food chains that really are conquering the world.

But doesn't the mall with its blandness and its sameness represent everything that people hate and fear about America, I asked social commentator Joe Queenan.

"What people are really afraid of is not that blandness will take over the world, but that really cool stuff is going to take over the world," Mr Queenan said.

Most Americans don't understand why the rest of the world doesn't want to be cool like them, he added.

Americans would like the rest of the world to back them on everything from accepting their cultural institutions to invading Iraq, Mr Queenan said.

But if the rest of the world does not back the US, Americans will do what they want anyway, he said, adding: "Americans are going to get their way. Right, wrong or indifferent."

That remarkable combination of American power - economic, cultural as well as military - must be unique in world history.

Somehow, for most Americans, the significance seems to be passing them by.