European empires came home with colonies. The distinctive American choice after the world wars was different: we did not annex France, Germany, Italy, or Japan. We did not turn Seoul into a province. We wrote no American viceroy over Lima or Buenos Aires. People in those countries kept — or recovered — the right to govern themselves.
In Europe the Marshall Plan rebuilt rivals on purpose. In Japan the occupation ended in 1952 and the Diet was Japanese. On the Korean peninsula we bled to keep a republic standing, then did not take the peninsula as a possession. In South America we never planted a settler empire the way Spain and Portugal had. That is a real contrast with the colonial age.
It is not the whole record, and this site will not pretend it is. The Philippines was held after 1898 and became independent in 1946. We still have territories. We have intervened in the hemisphere. Native nations on this continent were dispossessed. Those facts belong next to the boast.
The boast that still stands is this: when the great wars ended, the American habit was to go home and leave other peoples their flags. That is not how most winners in history have behaved.