The US is a pretty big and diverse place. Where I'm from it's expected that everyone screws everyone as hard as possible in any business transaction and if you don't do your due diligence then you consent to whatever screwing you receive.
For example you call ten plumbers and all ten of them will give you a "screw you" price then you call up your cousin who calls his in-law who's a GC who gives you a plumber's contact info and a name to drop and then you get a reasonable price that the plumber would offer when they're not trying to screw the other party. Then you use this info to negotiate the other guys down to reasonable prices. And that's just one example.
The state can generally be trusted to not take advantage of you but you still have to be careful. They'll play plenty of tricks that push the limits of plausible deniability in order to get their money.
Even retail transactions are suspect. About the only places I can trust to not rip me off 50% of the time are the big national chains.
It's not quite as bad as some other parts of the world but you can't enter into any business transaction without doing your due diligence. If you do you'll get burned pretty often.
Even in random day to day interactions with other people you don't trust people unless you know them or there's some alignment of interests that keeps them from screwing you.
And no, I don't come from some "backwards" rural area. I'm speaking about a relatively well off part of the northeast.