Comment by Manuel_D
It's not the "exact same thing" since it's legal spending. If you and your friends want to pool money together and put up billboards promoting carbon free energy solutions, congrats you've formed a political PAC.
This is distinct from a foreign entity, without registering as a foreign entity, directly participating in electioneering. While it's true that the Russian involvement in 2016 was overblown let's not pretend it's the same as legal political spending.
US funds foreign political no profits in other countries thanks to the Foreign Assistance Act agencies like USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy.
That's besides the money funneled through other agencies which are more covert.
That means that countries around the world have US funded no profits effectively doing non bi-partizan political activity.
Officially those should only inform (foreign) citizens about their civic and voting rights, in reality they are more often than not tools of the US to influence and take huge biases in other countries.
And here's the underlying problem: as per American exceptionalism it's fine when US does that, but it's unacceptable when others do it in US.