Liberal means the same thing in the U.S. in more left-wing / academic circles => neoliberal capitalists. It depends on if this is left or right of center in your country

I think it’s more a case of Americans not realizing that their liberal party is rather right-wing, possibly because there’s nothing to the left of it and the US media falsely conflates “liberal” and “left”.

Yes.

Liberalism is right wing in most of the world.

"Liberal" has a long history as an insult used by Communists against non-Communist democrats.