“I can’t speak for the whole world but I think I can comment reasonably well on behalf of the rest of the anglosphere. We (usually) don’t hate the USA, it just makes us uncomfortable and we don’t know why but it’s uncomfortable enough that we are disinclined to speak positively about America. The reason for this discomfort is essentially the Uncanny Valley effect in play. The USA, to people from Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK is superficially familiar, its primary language is English, we share some cultural norms but it is so far removed linguistically, socially, politically, economically and religiously from the rest of us that we can’t help but get a niggling feeling that something is wrong with it.

Nearly everything we enjoy in moderation in our countries seems to be either glorified to the point of holiness, rejected as tantamount to a declaration of allegiance to Satan or just rearranged so as to give us pause to realise that the USA occupies, for us, an unpleasant middle ground between not being drastically foreign enough to be seen as a point of interest and not close enough to us that we’d feel at home if we ever decided to live there.

A good example of this would be the difference, for me, between North Korea and Belgium. I have been to Belgium and while there is a language barrier, a different currency and some behavioural and architectural differences I don’t mind that because it’s a nice country, the people are lovely and I can’t honestly expect the whole world to learn English just for my convenience.

By contrast, North Korea (which I very much hope to visit someday) is drastically different politically, culturally, culinarily, historically and linguistically to anything I would encounter in any the UK or any European country. This, again, doesn’t bother me because I expect that a country half way around the world would be extremely different and I would be rather disappointed if it were not.

The USA however, falls into neither category, I like visiting but while I can deal with the cult of personality surrounding the Kim family I just cannot comprehend the mindset of someone who attends a megachurch. I understand religion but coming from the UK where it is a private affair conducted in small halls and centuries old chapels the screaming and chanting and fanaticism I’d expect at a North Korean military parade seems violently out of place and indeed, uncultured and tacky when associated with what I’ve always seen as a rather solemn and dignified practice.

There are many more examples of this but I believe the underlying theme of English speaking people’s criticisms of the USA is that they would like to understand it, but it’s idiosyncrasies make it easier for us to identify with Czechs or Belgians.”