I'm writing an essay on the transition of hegemony between the US and UK. I found that the US was incredibly economically integrated into the British imperial economy - 56% of US exports in 1890 were destined for British markets, 58% of US exports & imports were carried by British ships etc.
I'd expect this level of integration to reflect in US discussions on strategy, particularly around the 1895 Venezuela Crisis and subsequent war scare with Britain. However, I haven't found any references to the issue in readings (the key ones being The Empire Project, Safe Passage, and The Weary Titan) or various primary sources - though still working on the latter.
I'd really appreciate any help with the issue, especially references to sources. I can probably just infer that economic integration meant that both sides thought of war as unrealistic, but that feels a bit woolly without citations to back it up.
You may wish to look into the share of US exports as a % of US GDP in the 1890s to check your assumption that the US economy was that integrated. The US is unusual in being a very large country, so much trade that happens across borders in Europe or much of Asia happens with states in the USA. Or at least this is the general rule in the 20th century, but I don't see much reason to assume it was different in the late 19th century, when the US population had expanded in size and geographical spread so much since the Revolution. So a large share of US exports going to the UK doesn't thereby necessarily mean that the UK was that important to the US as a whole.
There is a bit of a bias amongst historians to talk about trade, because trade statistics are often the main surviving economic data we have before modern statistical offices, since governments often funded themselves through customs duties. Political debates over tariffs and trade policy also mean that there is lots of qualitative historical evidence, and people on all sides had incentives to exaggerate the importance of the issue.
For digging around purposes, to get you a citation, the St Louis Federal Bank has a collection of historical US statistics, at https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/historical-statistics-united-states-1208
And there's historical estimates of GDP at https://www.rug.nl/ggdc/historicaldevelopment/maddison/
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