'美国'.  In most people's interpretations, definitions, or their subconscious, everything in 美国 must be very beautiful (美), otherwise why you translate the U.S. as  '美国'??  And everybody who opposes this absurdity still use this terminology all the time without any objection.

Actually, the U.S. is more appropriately translated as '麥国'.  First, phonetically, it's much closer in pronunciation.  Actually, it's almost identical.  Second, the U.S. is indeed a very big wheat-producing country.  '莓国' is not as good a choice. The sound is not as accurate, although the U.S. does produce and the Americans do eat a lot of berries.  As for '霉国'?  Well, I'll leave that to your imaginations.

The Japanese translate the U.S. as '米国', that indicates that they have much more consciousness and alert of the bad influence of a translation of the U.S. as '美国' can have on their country, so they used the term '米国' even before the Second World War.  However, I don't think that their using the term '米国' is a good one.  First, phonetically, it's not close.  Second, the U.S. does not produce much rice!

Sadly, I doubt many Chinese will and can wake up someday to this extremely fundamental but important issue.  The influence of a simple, but bad, translation of U.S. as '美国', will be plaguing China for as long as this historical mistake is not corrected.  So starting right now, please do you part for China, call the U.S. '麥国'.

Don't you also feel England would be more appropriately translated as '陰国', according to that country's character and its frequently cloudy weather??