PC: If Mexico and Central America were united and US-aligned, would United Fruit be a thing?

[oshron]

hey, all. this question is more spur of the moment than anything, but i think the idea itself occurred to me a while ago (the concept only just came back to my mind)

anyway, as some of you may know, one of the long-standing concepts in my ASB ATL is that there's a revived Aztec Empire which is a key ally of the United States. (the short version is that they were conquered by Spain as IOTL but not completely destroyed, waging a longstanding resistance until eventually gaining independence in the mid-19th century. its territory encompasses most of OTL's Mexico and down to the Panama Canal, with a few islands besides.) that's kind of beside the point, but i wanted to provide at least some basic context for why this question came to me.

the thought that occurred to me is this: would United Fruit, the infamous American megacorporation which puppetized much of Central America and is the source of the term "banana republic", have even been a thing if basically all of Central America and then some was a US ally?

...yeah, this question isn't as in-depth as some of my others like i said, this one basically only just occurred to me

 

[Nivek]

the thought that occurred to me is this: would United Fruit, the infamous American megacorporation which puppetized much of Central America and is the source of the term "banana republic", have even been a thing if basically all of Central America and then some was a US ally?

YES and would be headache for both nations, more if this a real alliance and not the not so racial harmonic 19TH century USA trying to boss the more native-mestizo Azteco-Mexico(again mexico included more north, i hate how people make usa a fixed point on history) because the company would try to overboss...and again if too hard the native goverment might not liked it at all and headbutting will happen

YES, because capitalist is agnostic of nations,

 

[oshron]

YES and would be headache for both nations, more if this a real alliance and not the not so racial harmonic 19TH century USA trying to boss the more native-mestizo Azteco-Mexico(again mexico included more north, i hate how people make usa a fixed point on history) because the company would try to overboss...and again if too hard the native goverment might not liked it at all and headbutting will happen

YES, because capitalist is agnostic of nations,

i'd kinda figured it would never hurts to get peer review, and i'd love to hear other opinions as well

 

[Arkenfolm]

Central America was of course US allies during most of history, and their political class saw no problem and benefitted much from the United Fruit Company. But here (if we assume it's just as poor/instable/corrupt as OTL Mexico), the more diverse economy means that United Fruit is just one more powerful foreign corporation amongst several so can't really hold as much control over the government. Although regionally they'd be an important political player and would dominate those politics and probably develop and run those regions more or less the same as they did with independent Central America.

 

[GeographyDude]

. . . the more diverse economy means that United Fruit is just one more powerful foreign corporation amongst several so can't really hold as much control over the government. . .

I agree a more diverse economy will help. With medium luck, we might even get a balance of power type of thing (corporations wanting fair play, honest tax collection, etc, so that one of their competitors won’t end up being differentially helped more than they).

We in the U.S. will still try to second-fiddle Latin American, and in part because of damn racial beliefs.

But sadly, tragically, African-American persons in the U.S. will still be treated as the main ‘other.’