I was talking about spoken language, not the existence of initialisms per se. Though I'd wager they are a lot more prevalent in written American English than in most other languages as well. Nobody else would think of inventing an initialism-euphemism for body odour (which I guess already is a euphemism for "smell" for example. Or "significant other".
By the way, QED is just a calque from Greek. (Like most things Roman...)
Funny, when I was born and grew up outside the US it was very common there too. Perhaps you'd like to scope your claim down to a specific group of people who find it annoying?