No I never imagined or implied that.
> some kid in eastern europe watched Kobe Bryant play and got inspired to sign up for a local basketball team
That's just the cultural adoption reproducing itself. No American is influencing i.e. changing the course of events meaningfully in their advantage. Some cultural export that's all.
> People in some countries outside of the US that never had Halloween as a holiday now unofficially observe it
Again, just the same cultural adoption reproducing. At best this represents some incremental exports in intangibles. Pay-per-view games, some costumes from China. Hey now American influence is favoring the Chinese economy.
Yeah there's cultural hegemony. There's a lot of talk and hand wrangling about "soft power" and "influence" but even letting your imagination run the best you could come up were nothing more than some examples of aesthetics choices.