What would happen to America(the US of) if we stopped all foreign activity but trade?

[Narz]

Edit :

no diplomacy except trade? physically impossible. Once you trade, the rest will naturally, and inevitably follow.

Yes, diplomacy too. I meant to add that. But no wars or financial support of wars.

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In other words - no invasions, no giving weapons to one side or another, no bribery, no helping found a nation or destroy one, no military presence anywhere (unless a nation attacked us first), no manipulation of the global marketplace, etc.

So what would happen?

In other words - no invasions, no giving weapons to one side or another, no bribery, no helping found a nation or destroy one, no military presence anywhere (unless a nation attacked us first), no manipulation of the global marketplace, etc.

So what would happen?

 

[ybbor]

no diplomacy except trade? physically impossible. Once you trade, the rest will naturally, and inevitably follow.

 

[Kayak]

^agreed. You may as well close the borders because other countries would hose you on trade deals if they knew you could not retaliate in any way. We would have a tough time with pirates and criminals too.

 

[Narz]

Edit :

no diplomacy except trade? physically impossible. Once you trade, the rest will naturally, and inevitably follow.

Yes, diplomacy too (but no wars of financial support of violence of any kind). I meant to add that. OP changed.

 

[ybbor]

oh, I assumed that you were talking about all contact with other nations except trade, but you're just talking about forceful/semi-forceful influence?

How can you trade without manipulating the world marketplace?

 

[Neomega]

There would be worldwide popular revolutions, as our "foreign aid" backed governments would collapse.

Then America would prosper in it's neutrality.

 

[Narz]

How can you trade without manipulating the world marketplace?

I meant without manipulating it with threats or force.

 

[Phlegmak]

One of the US's major exports is weapons. That would stop? So for us to "trade", it would have to include weapons.

 

[Rhymes]

Well first of all Israel would get crushed, since most of their military comes from either american backup or from financial help they receive from the USA.

Second the world would start blaming US for creating **** and then letting the rest of the world clean up.

Imo, whatever the US does, they will always be blamed, unless they became selfless in an extraordinary way, in which case US citizen would start complaining.

 

[Irish Caesar]

Well, first off, there'd be hell to pay as we stopped all foreign aid, UN dues, etc. This would be a good thing, but it'd still be hell.

Next, government spending would go down as we wouldn't have to station troops all over the world. Hopefully this would also cause taxes to decrease and spur some investment while trying to cut out some of the debt.

Very quickly, international tensions would start to break out between countries that we would turn a blind eye to, and would disrupt our trade. This would occur because of the aforementioned revolutions and weak UN.

Since USA would be unable to take any military action to protect its trade, it would perhaps turn to embargoes and tariffs. Or perhaps go without.

Long term: bad idea.

 

[amadeus]

People would be begging us to get us back in.

 

[JohnRM]

People would be begging us to get us back in.

Yep!


All Hell would break loose.

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

Diplomatic relations are generally required for trade between two nations. Thus, only trade is not possible.

 

[Kozmos]

Mrhhm I bet the Americans will says that will beg for their return as world policemen.

Not really.

 

[mrtn]

The vast majority of the countries in the world manage just right without resorting to violence, so why wouldn't USA?

 

[AceChilla]

The vast majority of the countries in the world manage just right without resorting to violence, so why wouldn't USA?

Well you gotta admit, we can do well without violence because we have a big bully on the block called uncle sam who's on our side.

If Sam wouldn't be there we would have to go after Osama ourselves...

If the US would turn to isolation, other "countries/organisations" are going to take their place and gain in influence. If the US leaves Europe and China/India are going to fill up the gap.

 

[~Corsair#01~]

The US aid would be sorely missed, and a lot of countries would get very annoyed. If the EU does it's part to help other countries why shouldn't the US?
A lot of people are expecting more of the US than could reasonably be expected, but that doesn't mean the US should just completely give up. It's in a unique position to do the kinds of things that the EU is politically too divided to do and other lands can't afford to do. And THAT is why everyone focuses so much attention on the US.

Moving on to the actual topic, Europe would be fine. Completely. There would be a lot of turmoil, but we'd be a good distance away from all, just like the USA.
In fact, most of the "western" world is isolated from the third world geographically and politically/economically stable, and Israel can defend itself easily.
I don't think the US holds a sizeable majority of the pacekeepers in Africa, so Africa should be fine. Or at any rate, not too much worse than it is now.
For central Asia, Afghanistan is... not going to do too well. Turkmenistan could well topple as well.

Things would get a lot worse everywhere, but the idea of a complete collapse of all world civilisation has no basis in reality. The USA is a great help to the world, but isn't the only thing stopping the world from being conquered by Barbarian tribes with pointy swords.

Finally, I would miss being able to listen to the Josh in Japan podcast, since those Navy bases in Yokosuka would be gone.

 

[superisis]

would this mean that there would be no american tourists? And America would take in no tourists? And no immigrants and no refugees? Americans would miss out greatly if they couldn't travel anywhere.

 

[GrandAdmiral]

America would become the female dog of other nations who do things like sell weapons, manipulate the global marketplace etc. China's future global dominance would increase ten fold.

However bad US policy is, it does serve to check and shape global power. If you have a problem with the US doing whatever it wants don't be suprised if other nations do much worse without a US detterant.

Sure you have the EU to save Europe but outside of Europe they are no detterant and never will be a detterant in Asia or Latin America. If this happened 20 years ago you could easily say that all of Asia, Africa, Latin America and half of Europe would be communist. If that were the case, Western Europe, the US and Japan would be defensless. But thats the past and future threats are impossible becuase no other nations would resort to violence even without a detterant.

 

[Sidhe]

detterant good, bully bad, the US throwing it's weight around is fine, we can but ask that it's careful where it parks it's arse though.