I agree that the pro-British tilt may not be quite so pronounced in this timeline.
But at least three factors will create an affinity with Britain that Germany will not benefit from:
1) Common language.
2) Britain in 1914 was far and away the #1 foreign investor in the U.S..
3) American business elites were still marrying into British nobility - not German - with some zeal.
Offsetting that, of course, will be anti-British sentiment among Irish and even some German American immigrant communities...
At any rate, the global economy will be still be dominated by Sterling, at least for the time being. The more interesting question will be how the free trade/imperial preference debate plays out in Westminster. The Germans may be weakened by the war, but as U.S. competition heats up, the free traders may end up on the back foot once again.
All valid points but I would chalk it up to a draw. English will likely remain the de facto, and in many ways de jure, language of trade and business, markets will set their watches to GMT and eye London, but German will continue to be a handy language for the sciences, engineering, and technical fields, and the USA will retain a large German speaking community with German language newspapers, radio and education. That will divide the American mind over two distinct cultures and languages long before we see the rise of Spanish, pushing the USA towards a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic sensibility we only began to embrace in fact generations later.
Although the British are the biggest investor in the USA, I suspect the USA grows to become the biggest investor in Germany. The opportunity post-war will be there and the German-American community will see a lot of industrial concerns that can benefit from buying into German industry. Standard Oil did OTL, Fokker came to the USA to work with North American, ITT bought into Folke-Wulf, etc., and that is under less cordial times. German invention and patents will draw American capital, unless the British get there first. And that might make for odd bedfellows indeed. Especially as British industrialists speak German better than French, not as social but more lucrative. Why not let the financial ties bind the two Empires together?
The USA has a cultural affinity to France stemming from the Revolution, I think that might keep the sentiment anti-German here, but this Germany is also not guilty of war, not the rapist of Belgium, so German culture has not been as fully equated to savage. I think that helps, the German-American community might get an itch to marry into the German nobility in emulation, but we might ponder that the British Monarchs are still House Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, a very German family after all. Besides, I think there might less impoverished British families to sell off daughters or woo commoner stock American heiresses. Here the Irish-American sensibility might not be so anti-Britain, if Ireland is devolved to a Dominion like status, the civil war averted, the IRA types never raised to power, the Irish might feel far more Anglophillic.
And I agree, at bottom, Sterling will be the key currency, it might slip to a basket currency with Dollars and Marks, but is that so bad? The better part of all industrial trade is between, from or to these three countries, each is about as good as the other, hiding behind gold the global medium of trade is stable and predictable, a Banker's, and thus City of London's, paradise. Japan will be Sterling pegged, likely too China, Russia might be the only other big country to work more on Marks, oil is traded in Sterling as much as Dollars, the sinews of finance still touch London as often as not, more really. With Britain riding high I would be loathe to toss in a tariff fight, of course the USA did that, but I think the underlying forces are different. Britain benefitted from imports, her domestic economy was reducing to luxury brands and the sort of stuff poor farmers in rural corners of the Empire needed, Made in Germany was already as good as gold, her balance of payments offset by oil purchases from mostly British dominated trade, raw materials and food stuffs from across the Empire, the London policy makers are not as beholden to a huge agricultural and industrial base, indeed those fools work for their money and are beneath them. Working class England might lose a lot of industrial jobs to free trade but their bread is cheaper. I could argue it either way but tend to think the free traders prevail, likely the whole financial elite has profited greatly from the war and not just selling to France or Russia, they have loftier sights than preserving factories up north.
As always, I look forward to your thoughts!