According to the State Department, the J-1 visa Summer Work Study program, which allows foreign students to work in the United States for a few months, is meant to promote “lasting and meaningful relationships” between the students and Americans.

The U.S. State Department has been using the term 21st Century Statecraft to describe policies and activities promoting a networked society.

U.S. officials shift gears to a digital-first diplomatic strategy in the face of rising anti-Americanism worldwide...Posting content that influencers will spread themselves can maximize the State Department’s impact via network effects while economizing effort. And by learning about their audience, diplomats will be able to tailor their engagement strategy and make course corrections.

In terms of creating a cohesive policy around freedom of expression, communicating that policy and incorporating that policy into meaningful activities, the State Department has been coordinated and thorough in it’s design and development of a public diplomacy strategy.

Four hundred foreign students complained to the State Department that the Hershey chocolate company abused a foreign-exchange program to put them to work packing chocolate and stashed them in overpriced company housing that leaves them only $40 to $140 for a week's work.

The incidental influence that the United States exerts simply through people around the world observing its behavior is consistently underestimated, just as the influence the United States can exert intentionally by exercising its economic, military, or other instruments of hard power tends to be overestimated.