Changing Opinions on America – Econlib

I have a memory of reading, sometime in the 1980s, a story in a French magazine about the American border patrol along the Mexican border. They don’t use police dogs, the reporter explained approvingly, “because of a certain idea of the rights of man.” I have tried to trace this story, but alas, to no avail.

Whether the details of my memory are exact or not, I believe that, in general, and for a long time, many of those in the world who were critical of the American ideals and way of life, or even thought of themselves as anti-American, still had much respect and even admiration for the country and its traditions. Many secretly regretted not being American.

How this has changed! Just consider the experience of the South Korean personnel who were the victims of a police raid at an LG-Hyundai plant in Georgia. They were arrested, shackled, and jailed for one week until they were released and allowed to return to their country. The Wall Street Journal reports on the wife of an engineer arrested there (“Confusion, Anger, Relief: Korean Engineer Tells of Week in U.S. ICE Detention,” September 12, 2025):

Lee said she was heartbroken to hear her husband, an LG Energy employee, was in shackles. “Treating him like a felon—it made me so angry,” she said.

The husband was among the 330 workers who, last Friday, landed near Seoul on a flight chartered by the South Korean government. His wife, who waited for him at the airport, emotionally declared:

I don’t want him to go back there.

“There” is America. A report by the Financial Times is even more damning (“South Korea Denounces ‘Shocking’ US Treatment of Detained Workers,” September 12, 2025):

The workers’ flight was delayed on Wednesday after President Donald Trump made them a last-minute offer to remain in the US. But only one elected to stay, with many who returned to Korea vowing never to return to America. …

Business groups and South Korean officials have admitted that Korean companies often used unsuitable visas for workers sent to the US to build multibillion-dollar advanced plants. But they insist Washington left them in an “impossible position” by refusing to facilitate short-term working visas that would allow projects to be completed on time.

Another returning worker said that “we should have followed the rules properly”. Seoul should negotiate the visa issue with Washington, the worker said, but added that “I don’t want to go back to the US”.

Just a few days ago, I found, on the website of a foreign university in a Western country, a list of countries with high cybersecurity risks, requiring faculty traveling there to borrow a specially configured device from the university. The countries listed (in this order):

United States
China
Russia
Iran
India
North Korea

I suspect that, lurking under this list, there is still some anti-américanisme primaire (“crude anti-Americanism”) as we (well, some of us) used to say in French.* Perhaps many would now have some reason not to laugh at the list. American border agents have the power to inspect electronic devices at ports of entry.

America is going through dangerous times. Those who love her most should be the most worried.

——* In 1984, Georges Suffert, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the magazine Le Point in Paris, published his book Les nouveaux cow-boys. Essai sur l’anti-américanisme primaire (The New Cowboys: Essay on Crude Anti-Americanism). At Le Point, he was a colleague of Maurice Roy, another Deputy Editor-in-Chief and also economics editor, who had published Vive le Capitalisme! (Long Live Capitalism!) a few years earlier. I was honored to count Roy among my friends. In France as in America, we seem to be living in another geological epoch.