Sorry I don't think you CAN justify it, especially if the other powers are founding new lands in America. Spain will think "if they can do, we will too." Even if it's not adventurers, I can see them forming native alliances and picking off some states as well as exploring. Being stunted in America will also change their relationship with Portugal, they could be more focused on African ports.ETA:
(Sigh. It sure is a lot of work preparing a TL. My TL isn't even about Spain, and they'll barely even be mentioned in the finished version. But if I can't justify their staying out of the Americas, then the whole thing collapses. So I'm having to focus this much on Spanish affairs when I'd rather be working on, you know, the countries my TL is actually about.)
I need to decide what Spain is doing and do more research into Netherlands independence before I can know if the Dutch will still be active here. I don't need them to be, but I also don't need them to not be.
I think Morocco is a bridge too far for the Ottomans. Even Western Algeria was debatably vassaled and the Saadis in the south are Alids. Are even Christian conquests going to convince them to run full tilt at the Ottomans who have spent years screaming about Ali-loving heretics in Safavid Iran? OTL Spain even held Tunis until the 1570s and the Amasya Treaty with Tahmasp wasn't until 1555. The northern regions of Morocco are being held by the Kingdom of Fez and that kingdom was conquered by the Saadis in 1554 so it's bound to be weakening by 1530.I can't for the life of me imagine what could possibly cause the Spanish to engage in a death-struggle with the Ottomans. All that would do is cause a strong alliance between the Ottomans and France, and push Morocco into the Ottomans' hands.
If Spain is going to concentrate on the Old World, doesn't trying to dominate Portugal make more sense? And Italy? Morocco and Algeria are populous and mountainous. This is a hopeless undertaking.
I can't for the life of me imagine what could possibly cause the Spanish to engage in a death-struggle with the Ottomans. All that would do is cause a strong alliance between the Ottomans and France, and push Morocco into the Ottomans' hands.
If Spain is going to concentrate on the Old World, doesn't trying to dominate Portugal make more sense? And Italy? Morocco and Algeria are populous and mountainous. This is a hopeless undertaking.
Well generally it's accepted that the mass of precious metals enabled Spain to finance wars of power without needing to develop an internal middle-class to tax it. Thus the monarch didn't have to fight with his nobles for tax revenue and there were fewer merchants because Spain had to be super-militarized because of the Reconquista. So too, a lot of nobles were tax-exempt (a method adopted to entice the lords to prosecute the Reconquista). Of course all the silver and gold made the value of the money plummet and while some good early work on scarcity was done by Spanish economists in the Silgo de Oro and the Ottomans had to debase the coinage because of it, Spain still went bankrupt more than once.I'd disagree about the resources of the New World hurting Spain. Look at its population base compared to France, even in 1600. Without the silver of the New World, how is it going to be anywhere near as powerful as OTL?