alt Hacker NewsThe pertinent question, then, is who's gonna eat China's lunch?
My guess would be south/southeast Asia (India and Vietnam seem especially promising), but if the US was smart it'd put its efforts fully toward as many infrastructure investments and trade agreements and immigration agreements as possible to create a pan-American economic union. We have the resources and technology to turn every country in North and South America into an industrial and technological powerhouse. We have the resources and technology to finally conquer the Darién Gap and connect North and South America with highways and high-speed rail. We have the resources and technology to go on the offense against drug cartels (while also eliminating the failed border controls and drug prohibitions that keep those cartels in business in the first place).
If we're gonna be imperialists, then by golly let's at least be productive about it.
China's big. It has a long way to go before all of it becomes developed enough that they have to worry about someone else eating their lunch.
And Latin American nations can't get started on economic development because their governance sucks. It's actually a decades-old problem, and not one that the U.S. can do much about. The one country that probably has the best shot right now is Argentina, let's see how they do.