USA is the richest country on the planet. That means that people have been trying really hard to hate USA for a century now.
Not true in my recollection.
I remember that America still had a very positive image in France in the 60's and even still in the 70's, though it was getting more difficult by then. It was after America booted the bad Germans out of Douce France in 1945 and Hollywood films started to show in France, in theaters first but also later on television, which was still something very new, with a unique channel at first making viewing of the Westerns somewhat compelling.
Things changed I believe first because on the Vietnam War. The news coverage in France was very favorable to the U.S. However, I remember that news bulletins would specify the "body count" of the day, i.e. how many Vietcong had been killed, which was a fixation of the U.S. military. And then the use of napalm. And the carpet bombing of Hanoi. And then Vietnamese villagers in the South being killed by U.S. fire power. Slowly, public opinion started to shift. I believe it took something like 20 years for people to form of fully negative view of the American war in Vietnam.
And at the same time, we also started to have reports on racial violence in the States. Kennedy had been assassinated, and now Martin Luther Kind. Gradually, the American society started to look much less appealing. And there was throughout this period the constant trickle of the bad news of the American Empire meddling everywhere around the world. I don't buy this idea that many people around the world would learned to hate America, far from it. Some people did and probably for good reasons but they would be a small minority. Most people just formed a more conflicted view of America. Obama was an American president and yet he was and still is very much appreciated, him personally and to a lesser extent as president. Clinton too. And I don't think you can blame (I know you wouldn't) people for taking a dislike of Reagan or the two Bushes.
That was my digression of the day.
EB