In all fairness, in the general European perception, with the Cougar, the Puma, and the Focus, Ford is not really seen as an "American" brand. Especially the Focus has virtually nothing to do with what Europeans would consider 'an American car'. It is the quintessential low-to-mid-tier Eurocar: small, cheap, does what it is supposed to do.
Compare that to e.g. Chevrolet, which tried - and failed - to get a foothold in Europe. The failure was mostly them not understanding the local market.
> e.g. Chevrolet
Also it overlapped a lot with Opel which a much more successful brand in Europe. Basically it was an off-brand/cheap Opel, which wasn't exactly doing that great itself...
Ford sold the Focus in the USA also, I had one and loved it. It was one of their few "world" cars.
Didn't Chevrolet just bought and rebranded some Korean automaker?
AFAIK they were selling rebadged Daewoo models which were built on platforms developed by Opel. I suppose they wanted a budget brand and manufacturing and importing from Korea was cheaper back in those days than just using Opel's factories..