Hi! It's this is my first post on Alternate History.
In the mid-19th century in the USA and early 20th century in Australia, both nations established highly protectionist trade policies, based on a belief that these predominately agrarian nations had to industrialise to become self-sufficient and the belief that any nation reliant on agricultural and extractive (mining) sectors of the economy, would be in a permanent state of dependence on industralised nations (sort of like any version of Third World Dependency Theory, I would guess).
With a POD no later than say 1880's in the USA and 1910 in Australia (this thread is before 1900, but the trade debate wasn't settled in Australia until 1907 after Federation), can anyone think of an Alternate History where protectionist policies never get off the ground. Perhaps a political culture where rather than self-sufficieny being promoted, the notion of interdepenency and comparative advantage theory is seem as the ideal. Rather than diversification in the economy, concentration of specific export-oriented sectors are seen as a way of increasing the global power of the respective nations.
Also apart from just the economic implications, what would be the social and political implications, i.e. industrial societies have tended to produce differing levels of support for certain political ideologies vis-a-vis agricultural societies.
BTW Was going to write this post just about Australia as I'm Australian so I know the situation about there better, but decided to include the USA to encourage a wider discussion.