It's not just the USA. Vietnam and Turkiye use lots of sugar in non-traditional foods while Thailand has included palm sugar in even their traditional foods for as long as I can remember.
I remember some report about how Mexico had a very different rate of obesity from the USA until some of the free trade agreements kicked in and multinational food companies with USA branches started getting a bigger share in the Mexican market, ending up with the Mexican diet resembling more of the USA diet.