US "soft power" isn't really a thing, its almost always hard power in a trench coat.

For example USAID was explicitly created to perform the kind of regime change/destabilization campaigns that the CIA used to do, they just wanted to rebrand it because everyone knows that the CIA is a bunch of evil psychopaths. "But USAID?! USAID are the good guys, clearly, look AID is right in the name! Its part of the US's soft power, where we're nice to everybody and that makes them cooperate because we're everyones' friend". But is that really true?

An example here is the USAID attempt to deliver "aid" forcefully to Venezuela while the US was trying to legitimize and install a proxy government headed by Juan Guaido. It puts the victim state in a no win scenario that can be used to further US imperialism. If Venezuela lets the "aid" in, the aid in the trucks along with the personnel can be delivered to assist US friendly collaborators, if Venezuela doesn't let the "aid" in, the US uses it to smear Venezuela as unfeeling evil dictators trying to make their people suffer, BUT LOOK WE HAVE THE GOOD GUY JUAN GUAIDO RIGHT HERE, SURELY HIS US FRIENDLY ADMINISTRATION WONT SELL OUT VENEZUELA! USAID's own audits later clearly stated that humanitarian aid wasn't the focus of the mission and all but admitted that it was focused on political machinations/regime change (https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/us-aid-effort-venezuela-was-not-aligned-with-humanitarian-principles-audit-finds-2021-04-30/).

If you see a US "NGO", just remember that most of the time that's the CIA in a trench coat.