America did not begin life as a wealthy country, but was in fact relatively poor due to its underdevelopment relative to Britain, at the time the world’s undisputed superpower. Immanuel Wallerstein’s world-systems theory acknowledges this, classifying the U.S. as a “semi-periphery” country in the early 1800s due to its lack of industrial development compared to Britain, a “core” nation. Latin American nations such as Mexico are classified as semi-periphery or periphery to this day because they failed to embrace domestic development and remained dependent on wealthier nations for trade