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'The US are a big country' would not be used. It depends what you're talking about, when it means the government, we could say 'The US/UK are negotiating with...'. You'll find things like 'the UK/US are in Iraq', where the focus is not on the geographical entity.
I found the following explanation on http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/le.../page51.shtml: So for example, if we’re looking at the United States the country we would normally use the singular verb so for example – “The United States is a very big country.”
Is it possible that the word normally suggests that it is allowed to use are? Even if we are looking at the USA as a country? I'm just curious...
The following sentence is taken from BNC: The United States are part of my dreams because I grew up with its music, fashion, Burger King!
In the BNC example, I think the plural is used beause it is not so much the country as the culture and other aspects that we know. But then again, the person says 'its music', so they're a bit mixed-up on the issue.
Re: USA is/are 
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