The purpose of this article is to examine and to analyze the formation mechanism of the American public diplomacy’s strategy. Author explores and compares the concepts of “public diplomacy” and “foreign-oriented propaganda” with regard to the modern foreign policy of the US. After examining the terminology of the relevant official documents author suggests that the term “public diplomacy” is being used by the American officials as an euphemism for the term “propaganda” Analyzing the US strategic documents author identifies the main state institutions, responsible for the development of public diplomacy goals and objectives and the institutions, responsible for their implementation. In addition, author identifies the efficiency assessment procedure for those departments. Finally, author discovers the form of interconnection between those agents in the framework of the public diplomacy strategy’s formation process. Throughout the research author has discovered that few actors play the main role in the formation of the American public diplomacy’s strategy: State Department, Department of Defense, Presidential Administration (who is responsible for constructing the unified plan) and president of the United States himself as it remains up to him to approve this plan. Article highlights the deep incorporation of foreign-oriented propaganda into the American foreign policy strategic planning. Therefore author suggests that propaganda is an integral part of all American foreign policies regardless of whether those policies concern relationships with allies, partners or rivals. Author concludes that even though D. Trump’s administration demonstrates less interest in foreign-oriented propaganda comparing to the previous ones, the successful mechanism of American public diplomacy is unlikely to deteriorate any time soon due to the described incorporation into the system of political planning.