Finder iCloud icons do not match reality

Sign Out of iCloud completely and restart the computer.

Restart in Safe Mode. This will perform a Disk Repair, clear cache files and only load Apple Software, extensions and fonts. The boot up will be slow and can take some time - Normal.

Sign back Into iCloud

We are trying to Force a Re-Sync and hopefully will fix the issue

Re-Boot Normally and re-test.

I think you just need to be patient. Not every internet evolution happens nearly as fast as it "should". There are always conditions that slow things down and some files just take longer.

I've had exactly what your have described. But, sooner or later, it all uploaded and all was fine.

Trusting the icons is a moot point to me. They are what they are and you can't really do anything to change the basic characteristics/natures of your Mac or the internet. You can pay for greater upload speeds, but that can get expensive. We have a 600 Mbps download line, but upload is something on the order of 20Mbps. And we seldom see those speeds, i.e. they are always slower for whatever reasons.