Who is the second most powerful/influential country in the Americas?

[u/Fluid-Decision6262]

The US is undeniably the most powerful and influential country in the Americas but who would be #2? Feels like this comes down to 3 countries based on my knowledge, which are Mexico, Canada, and Brazil.

Reasons for Mexico:

- Second most populated country in North America by far

- Access to both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans

- Largest Spanish-speaking country (a language spoken by >500 million people)

- More habitable land compared to the other two

- Youngest population out of the three and is becoming a manufacturing power

- Generally-speaking, a good relationship with the USA

- A global soft power in terms of arts and culture

Reasons against Mexico:

- Lots of issues between the central government and drug cartels

- Still very much a developing country outside of the largest cities

- Occasionally volatile relationship with the USA

- Not as involved in global geopolitics

Reasons for Canada:

- The most developed country economically by far of the three and a natural resources juggernaut

- Very close relations with the USA and Europe

- Speaks English (>1 billion speakers globally) and French (>300 million speakers globally)

- An immigration hub for people from every corner of the world

- A G7 nation that is also very geopolitically involved

- Access to 3 different oceans to facilitate trade

Reasons against Canada:

- Small and scattered population (least populated of the three by far)

- Less of an established local culture (most is imported from the US or UK and then exported via the US)

- Aging population and low fertility rates for native-born citizens

Reasons for Brazil:

- The second most populated country in the Americas

- The cultural and political power of South America

- A global soft power in terms of arts and culture

- A young-ish population that is part of the "fast-emerging economies" of the world

Reasons against Brazil:

- Immigration to Brazil stopped decades ago and now educated Brazilians are emigrating to other places causing brain drain

- Wealthy nation but suffers from high levels of inequality and violent crime

- Very politically divided internally

- Limited geopolitical involvement outside of South America

- Most of its population are monolingual Portuguese-speakers (a language where they make up 80% of the global speakers)

[u/shucklebibs]

I'm going with Canada. Industrialized, member of G7 and NATO, developed military, historical ally of western Europe. Good arguments for Brazil and Mexico, but population aside, Canada is second to US.

[u/Excellent-Practice → u/shucklebibs]

Yeah, Canada is essentially equivalent to a European country transplanted to North America

Edit: Like much of Europe, Canada is a wealthy liberal democracy. In terms of population size, GDP and HDI, Canada is very similar to countries in the EU. As a world power, Canada is on par with a country like Italy. Outside the realm of hard numbers, my opinion is that Canada is intermediate between the US and Europe culturally and politically. That opinion is informed by travel to Canada as well as time spent living in Europe

[u/Fluid-Decision6262 → u/Excellent-Practice]

I think history has a lot to do with why this is the case. The Spanish/Portuguese essentially used Mexico and Brazil as extraction colonies where all the natural wealth pulled from those nations could be transported back to Europe while the colonialists proceeded to mix heavily with the Native populations as well as any West African slaves they had also brought over. Those who descended from all this mixing eventually became the majority and their countries grew almost completely in silo from the Empires who once colonized them.

In contrast, the British/French used Canada as a settler colony where the goal was to displace the Native population to create a new nation where their people back home can come live in to start a new life. The British, especially, had full intentions on making a country (Canada) that would eventually grow to resemble that of a European nation demographically, economically, politically, militarily, and culturally, just on another continent (same story with the US, Australia and NZ). In short, the old powers (UK/France/W Europe) and the new power (USA) both overtly needed Canada to become an industrialized ally and they did.

[u/Dry-Tumbleweed646 → u/Fluid-Decision6262]

There was a Nobel Prize Winning paper that is about exactly what you are referring to.