This will hopefully be a fairly free wheeling discussion, inspired by my thoughts in a thread in the FH subforum that was pursuing the tried and true formula of the US as the new Rome. My position boiled down to this: if America is the new Rome, it needs its own Socii. There's no reason for them to be military allies because the US doesn't need military allies - it has the most powerful military and two ocean-sized moats. However, economic allies are always useful - the bigger your trade network is, the richer you are. This is an alternative to the usual 'the US should annex the Western Hemisphere' (thats an argument for another time). I don't argue that this is necessarily likely, but I do argue that, if you want to make America the new Rome, this is probably the most thorough and effective way to do so.
So, suppose at some point during the 20th century - almost certainly sometime in the first half of the century - the political consensus in the US is that the US should establish a robust free trade network across the Americas, from Tierra Del Fuego to Cape Morris Jessup. Not a multilateral organization like the failed FTAA of our history (which had a great logo, by the way), but a series of bilateral trade agreements that eliminate as many trade barriers as humanly possible - everyone else in the network is free to establish similar free trade agreements with each other, but the US isn't going to mind being the middle man between those that don't. Rome didn't do multilateral agreements, so this new Rome won't either. Bilataralism would likely also help sustain the political popularity of this movement, at least within the US, where a lot of large multilateral deals often falter due to concerns about ceding too much control (even NAFTA had to get renegotiated, and that only involved three nations).
To this end, it would pursue a total economic union with all other countries in the Americas, climbing up the ladder of economic integration as far as possible:
en.m.wikipedia.org
Ultimately, the key 'wins' that the US would want in this scenario is a series of treaties that form common markets and customs unions with the other nations of the Americas.
I think we can agree that, on balance, while there would be specific sectors in each countries' economies that would have trouble with this, in general, free trade is a good thing, and if such a policy were actually pursued in the long-term, the western hemisphere would be quite a bit richer. If the policy were successful, it would also integrate Latin American economies with the US economy more deeply than they currently are, which could result in more political cohesion in the region (note I say cohesion, not necessarily stability). Finally, as the US would be the larger partner by far in each of the bilateral agreements, it would be in the position to set the common external tariffs, pretty much at will, and any sanctions would be that much more potent.
Discuss amongst yourselves.
So, suppose at some point during the 20th century - almost certainly sometime in the first half of the century - the political consensus in the US is that the US should establish a robust free trade network across the Americas, from Tierra Del Fuego to Cape Morris Jessup. Not a multilateral organization like the failed FTAA of our history (which had a great logo, by the way), but a series of bilateral trade agreements that eliminate as many trade barriers as humanly possible - everyone else in the network is free to establish similar free trade agreements with each other, but the US isn't going to mind being the middle man between those that don't. Rome didn't do multilateral agreements, so this new Rome won't either. Bilataralism would likely also help sustain the political popularity of this movement, at least within the US, where a lot of large multilateral deals often falter due to concerns about ceding too much control (even NAFTA had to get renegotiated, and that only involved three nations).
To this end, it would pursue a total economic union with all other countries in the Americas, climbing up the ladder of economic integration as far as possible:
Economic integration - Wikipedia
I think we can agree that, on balance, while there would be specific sectors in each countries' economies that would have trouble with this, in general, free trade is a good thing, and if such a policy were actually pursued in the long-term, the western hemisphere would be quite a bit richer. If the policy were successful, it would also integrate Latin American economies with the US economy more deeply than they currently are, which could result in more political cohesion in the region (note I say cohesion, not necessarily stability). Finally, as the US would be the larger partner by far in each of the bilateral agreements, it would be in the position to set the common external tariffs, pretty much at will, and any sanctions would be that much more potent.
Discuss amongst yourselves.
