“I confess that in America I saw more than America; I sought there the image of democracy itself,” French nobleman Alexis de Tocqueville wrote regarding his tour through the United States in the early 1830s. This summer, World Cup fans from around the world have taken to social media to document what they, too, saw across the country. It’s all in keeping with a long tradition of non-Americans illuminating essential truths about the United States, which then help Americans see their country in a new light.
As Americans mark the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence this July 4, we asked several Atlantic Council fellows and staff not from (or not originally from) the United States to continue this tradition by reflecting on what America means to them.
Click to jump to reflection:
A catalyst for my country’s freedom
My love of America hasn’t faded a bit since I first encountered it through its soft power in the fifties via my first Levi’s “cowboy pants,” as blue jeans were called those days. I was seven years old and had a piece of America. And soon thereafter came Batman and Superman, MAD magazine, Hollywood movies, Cadillacs and Chevys, and most importantly the most American phenomenon of all: rock n’ roll music, which I wrote about in my memoir, Rocking Toward a Free World. It hit me with an irresistible force.
All that came before my realization about the size and importance of the United States for the rest of the free world. Growing up (mostly) in a communist country, openly being a fan of America was not the norm. But Marxist propaganda could not move me. America always remained for me a place where dreams come true—an inspiration.
Once I fell for America, that affection became part of who I was, even as I learned about the darker side of its history. It’s big words, and maybe a banality, but without America freedom would never have arrived to my native Hungary. All this is not naïveté. It is based on a deep understanding and respect for the spirit of this great nation, and my personal gratitude for it.
—András Simonyi is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center, and was Hungary’s ambassador to the United States (2002-2007) and the first Hungarian ambassador to NATO (1999-2001).
A spirit of individuality that’s made me who I am
The United States has always been more than a country or a passport. For me, it became home through a long, uncertain journey that began in the Gaza Strip—a place plunged into chaos after Hamas seized power, ultimately making my return impossible. I first arrived in 2005 as a US State Department exchange student, part of a post‑9/11 effort to build cultural bridges with the Arab and Muslim worlds. Circumstances later made me one of the first Gazans granted asylum because of Hamas’s rule, and I became a citizen in 2014.
Over time, the people, places, and institutions I encountered here formed a mosaic of what America represents: a nation where individuals from every background can belong, united not by blood or tribe but by ideals, a shared civic heritage, and a rule of law that protects equality of opportunity. My own success was made possible by those who opened doors, the infrastructure that allowed me to participate fully in society, and a culture that celebrates individuality, creativity, ingenuity, and entrepreneurship, regardless of what the mob or the naysayers demand. That spirit of individuality has always been America’s antidote to conformity and the tyranny of the collective.
While our nation has much to reckon with in its past, the United States remains one of the few countries willing to confront its mistakes openly and correct course. Its democratic process empowers courageous individuals to advance new visions of prosperity, equality, justice, and human fulfillment.
As America marks its 250th birthday, it is essential to resist those who seek to impose failed collectivist ideologies or delegitimize the nation’s very existence simply because they oppose its foreign policy or current leadership. The United States is a beautiful, inspiring, and worthy project; one that must be preserved and defended in foreign affairs, domestic politics, and civic life. It has overcome immense challenges before, and it will continue to do so for the next 250 years.
—Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib leads Realign For Palestine, an Atlantic Council project that challenges entrenched narratives in the Israel and Palestine discourse and develops a new policy framework for rejuvenated pro-Palestine advocacy.
A practice renewed every day
As an immigrant, I’ve always believed in America. Because I grew up under an authoritarian government, I know what it means to be raised to obey, to stay silent, to never question. For me, America has never been just an idea to believe in; it is a practice to live out—every day, as a human being, as a lawyer, and as someone who engages in policy.
My family’s story illustrates that difference in two pictures. In one, my brother—a cutting-edge, visionary tech entrepreneur—sits imprisoned in China, punished for the very vision that should have made him celebrated. In the other, I am living the American dream: not only professional success, but a voice in shaping US policies. We began from the same place. Today our futures could not be further apart.
However turbulent the times we face are, I believe the United States will find its way—carried by the values embedded in each of us who believe in this country and its role in the world, by the strength of its institutions, and by the can-do spirit especially alive in the young. Because America is not only an inheritance—it is a practice, one each of us renews every day.
—Rayhan Asat is a senior legal and policy advisor with the Strategic Litigation Project at the Atlantic Council.
An emotional bond reinforced over time
For many Spaniards of my generation, the future had almost a greater geographical dimension than a temporal one. In the gray days of the Franco regime in the late 1960s, it meant setting foot in the world we had come to know through books, diving in headfirst. This was my attitude when I managed to travel for the first time, at age seventeen, to the United States as a swim instructor in a summer camp in Vermont. It proved to be the beginning of my connection with the key actor in the world, to which I dreamed of contributing.
These emotional ties to discovering America have been fleshed out, made more nuanced, and rationally reinforced through the many endeavors that life has led me to undertake within the United States—with its citizens and institutions. Today, as a European, to keep my Atlanticism alive, I must overcome the contempt and vitriol directed at us, expecting that taking the long view will be a worthy effort.
—Ana Palacio is an Atlantic Council board member and previously served as Spain’s foreign minister (2002-2004).
Both my grandfathers fought in World War I and both my parents served in World War II, when my father accompanied HMS Illustrious, badly damaged during the 1941 Malta convoys, to Norfolk, Virginia for essential repairs. I was therefore brought up knowing that it was the intervention of the United States in both conflicts that ensured my country emerged on the winning side. Serving twice in Washington as a British diplomat, including four years as ambassador from 2012 to 2016, confirmed what I already knew: that the United States was critical to the survival of our shared values, our liberty, and our democracy.
That said, America was always a transactional partner that put its own interests first. Why wouldn’t it? We mattered not because of nostalgia and emotion but because Britain then, and now, is a genuinely important trade, investment, and tech partner to the US and the provider of essential intelligence and military facilities around the world.
Today there is concern that the guardrails erected by the Founding Fathers a quarter of a millennium ago no longer seem able to constrain abuses of power by the executive. I share those concerns. But I have faith that the American people will not lightly throw away all that has made theirs the greatest nation on earth.
—Sir Peter Westmacott is a distinguished ambassadorial fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center and previously served the British ambassador to the United States.
A place to start over and succeed
It was the summer of 2020, during my vacation in a small village in the south of France, when I made the choice. After a long presidential campaign and twelve long years of political commitment, I decided to move to the United States. Why America? Because, when you want a fresh start, where do you go? America, of course. This is what America continues to possess more than the rest of the world: the belief in it as the land of opportunity, of big dreams.
Despite the inequalities and obstacles, the American dream of starting over and succeeding continues to shape minds around the world. That’s why one day I purchased a plane ticket without knowing where this audacity would lead me, but with the faith that, if I had to take the next step in my life, there was no better place to do it than the United States.
Life in the United States is not a Hollywood movie. The country has its challenges, violent history, and high cost of living today. But hard work and audacity don’t get any better than here. One day, meeting Atlantic Council Chairman John Rogers for the first time, he asked me: “What explains why a former French minister moves the United States with the ambition of developing an Africa program?” I replied: “Because the US is the only place where I could do that!”
—Rama Yade is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center. She served in several roles in the French government, including ambassador of France to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
A dream in the distance that became reality
Growing up in Albania under communism, America wasn’t a place—it was a happy feeling. A whisper of something better on the other side of a wall we couldn’t cross. Where I came from, dreaming too loudly was risky. But somehow, the idea of America got through anyway, a country where it didn’t matter who your family was or what your last name sounded like. It was where you could become something.
For Albanians, the bond goes back even further. US President Woodrow Wilson stood up for us in Paris in 1919 when nobody else would. Our country exists, in no small part, because of America.
So, when destiny brought an Albanian American into my life and God blessed us with two children, the dream stopped being something I watched from a distance. I moved into it. I became a citizen. And sometimes I look at my kids just going about their lives, confident, free, full of possibility, and I think about that little girl in Tirana who used to whisper that dream to herself. She would not believe her eyes. That, more than anything, is what America has meant to me.
—Ilva Tare is a resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center and was most recently a broadcaster with EuroNews Group.
A partner in the past, present, and future
The United States has been at the center of my professional career as a Mexican diplomat, as well as an important focus of my studies. I started working at the North American Directorate of the Secretaria de Relaciones Exteriores, as head of the department of migrant workers and border cooperation. I ended my career as the first and so far only female Mexican ambassador to the United States, the greatest honor to which I could aspire.
The US-Mexico relationship has never been easy. For Mexico, having lost half of its territory to the United States is still a wound. But dwelling in the past is a mistake. I always looked forward and worked for a present and a future of fruitful cooperation, better understanding, and empathy, as well as for the recognition of the immense contribution that Mexican and Mexican-American communities make to the United States.
I am convinced that Mexico is the past, the present, and the future of the United States, and that the United States is also the past, present, and future of Mexico. We are family, a marriage that cannot divorce.
—Martha Bárcena is a member of the Advisory Council of the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center and a former ambassador of Mexico to the United States (2018-2021).
A beacon of principles that transcend its borders
For me, the United States has always represented more than a country. It has been a beacon of hope for people living under oppression and a symbol of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.
I write this as someone who fled political persecution in Nigeria for my work as a journalist and found refuge in the United States in 2019. Today, this is the country I call home.
As a Nigerian born at a time when my country was under the grip of a military dictatorship, I grew up witnessing firsthand the consequences of state brutality. Even as Nigeria has transitioned back to democracy since 1999, its governments continue to exhibit authoritarian impulses. Within that context, my impression of the United States, and one I found widely shared among Nigerians, has been of a country that stands for principles that transcend its borders. We understood early that US pressure meant something in moments when our governments and institutions failed their people. US engagement with Nigerian authorities during the 2020 EndSARS protests against police brutality is just one example.
As the US marks its 250th anniversary, it must remember why it was long called the shining city on a hill. The defining question for the next 250 years should transcend whether America remains powerful. The question is whether people around the world continue to believe they are safer, freer, and better off in a world where America leads.
—Ohimai Amaize is the senior editor for social media strategy and audience engagement at the Atlantic Council and a multimedia journalist with communications, advocacy, and governance expertise.
A drive to reach new frontiers
“Never a failure, always a lesson” is an old, wise adage I feel particular affection for. And it encapsulates exactly my view of America’s spirit.
At the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, all visitors are welcomed with a short video illustrating US space exploration and the US-Soviet rivalry during the Cold War. It begins with Sputnik, the Russian satellite launched into orbit in 1957, an event that shocked Americans. It was a story of defeat and embarrassment for the “greatest nation on Earth.” It was a failure that turned into a lesson.
The United States rose from this nadir of humiliation to become the champion of space conquest and technological superiority, because it chose to fly to the moon.
This is what America means to me: tremendous resilience in times of distress and weakness, and a natural drive to overcome all barriers and reach new frontiers.
—Marek Magierowski is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center and served as Poland’s ambassador to the United States (2021-2024).
An enduring force shaping the world
The United States has meant the world to me. Born and raised in Sweden, my first encounter with the United States was a two-year stay in New Mexico during the Ronald Reagan years. I attended United World Colleges together with teenagers from eighty different countries—an experience that opened the world to me. I then came back during the Bill Clinton years to study international politics at the University of California, Berkeley, and for the past decade I have worked for the Atlantic Council experiencing both Donald Trump and Joe Biden as presidents. During these four decades the United States has changed in many ways, but its importance to the world prevails.
The Atlantic Council mission of working together to shape the future captures the essence of why the United States matters to me.
To execute leadership, see possibilities, and strive for solutions and excellence—that is what I have learned by living and working with Americans. Overall, the world has been better off when the United States and Europe work together to address global problems. And even in this challenging era of global transformation, finding common ground across the Atlantic makes both the United States and Europe stronger.
—Anna Wieslander, PhD, is the Atlantic Council’s director for Northern Europe and head of the Northern Europe Office in Stockholm.
A place of freer debate in my formative years
Raised in the Italy of the 1970s and 1980s—a time when the country was ravaged by a cruel, pervasive political culture dominated by extremists—I had no idea what I would find in the United States.
When I was sent to study for my bachelor’s degree in a small college in northeastern Ohio, amid factories and farms, I initially was bored and unhappy. But I came to be happily surprised by a country where debate about important values and principles was open and peaceful while still being ferocious and vital. I loved the freedom we students enjoyed in the university, and the incredible libraries and cultural ferment expressed in the many art exhibits, plays, and film screenings that my university and others throughout the country held. I felt I had found my place on earth. The United States became—and would remain for many years to come—my ideal safe country. Whenever life brought me somewhere else, I always strove to find a way back to the United States.
Today, unfortunately, I fear that this is not the case anymore. Freedom of speech seems far narrower now than when I was a student. I also see less interest in intellectual speculation and deep discussions in which anybody can participate and contribute. Too often now, public debate seems dominated by extreme and even violent views. Just as I always found a way back to the US, I hope the country can find its way back as well.
—Karim Mezran is director of the North Africa Initiative and resident senior fellow with the Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council focusing on the processes of change in North Africa.
An eye-opening experience in the Midwest
Growing up in Brazil, the United States was part of my everyday life long before I fully understood the depth of the relationship between our two countries. It was present in the cars we drove, the movies we watched, the toys I played with, the food we consumed, the language we wanted to speak, and, of course, in our history classes.
But it was not until I came to an exchange program in Wisconsin that I truly got to see the United States, and the US-Brazil relationship, with greater clarity. Beyond the bright lights of Times Square and the roller coasters of Disney World, I saw the United States also as a land of generous Midwesterners. They helped me to better understand the values our countries share and the more than two hundred years of diplomatic relations that still shape the lives of Brazilians and Americans alike. That experience shaped not only how I saw the United States, but also how I saw Brazil’s place in the world.
I will always be grateful to the United States for welcoming me and allowing me to pursue my own version of the American dream. That is why I have dedicated my career to strengthening US-Brazil relations and advancing a partnership that reflects the history, potential, and shared future of both countries.
—Valentina Sader is the director for strategy and programs at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.
A country empowered by self-correction
When I was fifteen, a US-led NATO military intervention against Serbia’s campaign of ethnic cleansing enabled me and almost a million other Kosovo Albanian war refugees to return home. We returned to a place that later became an independent country and has, over the past quarter century, been fundamentally transformed into a developing and functional democracy.
While it is hard to overstate how much this personal experience has shaped my views on the United States, the one other thing that has always struck me is the transparency with which this first democratic superpower projects its flaws, vulnerabilities, and internal dramas to the world. Even when it makes mistakes on the world stage—and it has surely made many—the odds are that you’ll hear those called out most vocally in the US itself. The lesson for me is that American democracy, shaped by a culture of innovation, will find ways to self-correct.
America’s ability to captivate the imagination of friends and foes alike derives not from its hard power, but from this ability to project a deep sense of security in its foundational ideas Those ideas, while not immune to inconsistencies and hypocrisies, have gone on to shape this deeply flawed world toward more freedom and prosperity.
—Agon Maliqi is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.
A true land of opportunity
At the height of the Greek financial crisis, the United States welcomed me with respect and compassion—qualities many of our European partners were not showing at the time. Its admiration for Greece went beyond our ancient history and influence on the American Revolution into our modern culture—to the generations of Greek immigrants who have brought some of the sharpest scientific, creative, and business minds (and some of the best food!) to this country.
As a correspondent for Greek media and a fellow at American universities, and through my work at the Atlantic Council, America offered me access to the tools—resources, networks, and knowledge—that empowered my voice. It also lifted my spirit with its grit and can-do attitude, helping me chart my own path to my current role as head of the US office of AmCham Greece.
In my time here, US-Greece cooperation has flourished across party lines, fostering a surge in economic activity and expanding people-to-people ties. At 250 years, America is still the land of opportunity. For me, this means being entrusted with the influence to help steer a historic alliance forward. To the extent that I have succeeded, this is due to America itself.
—Katerina Sokou is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.
An inspiration of freedom defended by strength
Every year, the Baltic states commemorate a few milestones closely associated with the United States. The Welles Declaration, the Atlantic Charter, and the US–Baltic Charter all reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to Lithuanian, Latvian, and Estonian freedom. Some links reach back even further—to General Tadeusz Kościuszko, a hero of America’s War of Independence and of our own struggle for liberty.
Yet for Lithuanians, America has always meant something more fundamental—hope and faith.
When the Forest Brothers went into the woods for what seemed a hopeless battle against occupying Soviet forces, they fought with that hope. I still remember my father—and later, myself—listening for a few words from the free world. It was proof that we had not been forgotten in the forests, Soviet prisons, or the gulags—that America had not abandoned Lithuania.
When the empire collapsed and we returned to the free world, that hope and faith were proven right. That is why, as America marks its 250th anniversary, we celebrate not just a nation, but an idea. Freedom inspires, but it endures only when defended by strength. Today, we defend it together, as allies, through NATO.
—Vytautas Leškevičius is a nonresident senior fellow at the Transatlantic Security Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, as well as a former Lithuanian ambassador to NATO (2015-2020).
