As if that would be the only influence, by the US and by other countries.
If we had free media and educated people, influence couldn't do harm. The best day to start educating everybody has long gone, but the second best moment to start is now.
E.g. Merz could use his officially not existing influence on a public TV channel to not self-censor critical material. https://feddit.org/post/32732388
https://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/prosieben-uebernahme-medienpluralismus-100.html