British colonialism shaped the wide use of English throughout the world a lot more than anything to do with the US.

First of all, they did not pick any language at founding. They refused to settle on one. And I don't think they ever changed that (although I wouldn't put it past the current administration to do something like that because 47 has the best words as we all know). English is de facto the language of the US like Bern is de facto the capital of Switzerland but it isn't set in stone.

German was briefly seriously discussed. That would have been funny.

I think the influence of the British Empire has done more to make English the lingua franca. But I think it is conceivable that we would be conducting a lot more diplomacy in French or Spanish if they had won out. But there are still huge chunks of Africa and Oceania that speak English. And Hockeyland. And big business hubs like Singapore or Hong Kong - the language of trade would still be English.

I think the USA had enough German influence that it could have been a major second language if things where different politically at that critical time.

“de facto” literally means that it wasn’t decided.

If only the government "decided". no one will care and Americans will continue using English as usual.

If all Americans decided to speak Spanish. World would still continue to speak in English because currently all information in all fields are mostly in English.

If all Americans decided to speak Spanish and translated everything into Spanish then probably world will start speaking Spanish.

A real life example is when Romans conquered all Greek territories, all those nations continued for decades writing in Greek.

I know for a fact that in Egypt all taxes and government related stuff remained in Greek even decades after Arab conquest.

Nothing much. Bad timing. USA is losing its position as an engineering/scientific center. Hollywood is unimportant in the sense of language spread. English is the current lingua franca, not American language.

Mandarin

If the USA was going to pick another language, it would be German.

i think so, mrdown had a good point about science and business but I think another big point that hasn't been mentioned yet is the internet. a quick Google search (proper citation needed) showed a bunch of numbers all over 50% of the internet being in English.

now I would be interested to hear positions arguing that's not US influence... I can't think of where they would place it but I'm interested to hear theories