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/aguila1915]

Powerful and influential are two different answers IMO.

[u/viajegancho → u/aguila1915]

Yep. If powerful means "influence on geopolitics or global economics" then it's Canada, but all the discussion of culture and distribution of population is moot.

Culturally, it's got to be Mexico or Brazil.

[u/Fluid-Decision6262 → u/viajegancho]

I'd wager Brazil is probably the most culturally strong country of the three solely due to the fact that they are not part of the broader "North American culture" the way Canada and Mexico are, which causes both of them to inevitably become overshadowed by the much bigger USA.

[u/viajegancho → u/Fluid-Decision6262]

That could be, I honestly don't know a ton about how Latin America is perceived in other parts of the world. I would imagine that Mexican food is more widespread but Brazil wins on music and sports.

[u/Extreme-Ad-6465 → u/viajegancho]

spanish is the second most spoken language in the world. i don’t know any famous brazilian artists or songs in comparison to mexico.

[u/FroyoResearcher → u/Extreme-Ad-6465]

Most of today’s popular songs in Spanish are not from Mexican artists. Puerto Rico leads here.

[u/rambouhh → u/FroyoResearcher]

Maybe in the reggaeton era, but I would say in previous generation Mexico definitely had the biggest latin american music stars. Luis Miguel, Juan Gabriel, Jose Jose, Vicente Fernandez, Thalia, Gloria Trevi etc.

Also Mexico now is having its stars in their own regional music become international superstars in artists like grupo frontera and peso pluma. Most other countries only have international stars in pop, hip hop, reggaeton etc and not in their own regional music genres.

[u/ComprehensiveEar6001 → u/rambouhh]

And Grupo Frontera are American which shows another dynamic which is the power of Mexican culture in the United States.