I've often wondered why, of all the countries that have those colours on their flags, America seems to be the only one that has such zeal about them. How, and why did America get the association, and why didn't France and Britain for example?
There is no response at this point, so I'll put a French point of view. I associate blue, white and red as the French colours, it describes our flag.
Union Jack or Stars and Stripes are less simple designs, so I go toward the flag design and not the colors.
National sports teams are nicknamed "the blues".
Where did you get this impression ? In many countries that use those colours, they are in fact associated with the country. In much of the world those colours are mostly associated with France, so much that the French flag is known as "the" tricolour flag.
It is true that in America, those colours are associated with the US, but, well, that is to be expected.
Edit: you can experiment by going to national versions of google and typing "red white blue" in the local language in various orders. You'll rarely get America, because the design of the American flag is somewhat complicated so people don't refer to it by its colours, rather by its patterns ("stars and stripes"). For instance on google.de (Germany), "rot weiss blau" gives the Netherlands, France and the pan-slavic colours (with varying order of results depending on order of input). On google.ar (Argentina) and google.cl (Chile, which as a red-white-blue flag), "rojo azul blanco" gives a French movie whose title is a reference to the French flag. On google.co.uk you get an American movie, and on google.pl (Poland) you get the same French movie and an earlier French TV series.