US President Woodrow Wilson stated openly before the First World War:
"Diplomacy and, if need be, violence must open the way to the (foreign) markets."
His central argument was that US industries have
"spread to the point where they will burst at the seams if they cannot freely access the world's markets".(15)
Some historians even say that this was one of the main reasons for the US entering the First and Second World War.
This is quoted from Jürgen Todenhöfer: "Die große Heuchelei: Wie der Westen seine Werte verrät", Ullstein, 2019. (My translation from this page).
US-Präsident Woodrow Wilson erklärte vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg offen: „Diplomatie und, wenn es sein muss, Gewalt müssen den Weg zu den (ausländischen Märkten) erschließen.“ Sein zentrales Argument lautete: Die US-Industrien haben sich „bis zu dem Punkt ausgebreitet, wo sie aus den Nähten platzen werden, wenn sie keinen freien Zugang zu den Märkten der Welt finden“ (15). Manche Historiker meinen sogar, dies sei einer der Hauptgründe für den Kriegseintritt der USA in den Ersten und Zweiten Weltkrieg gewesen.
Allegedly, this is just citing
(15) Kennedy, Paul: Aufstieg und Fall der großen Mächte. Ökonomischer Wandel und militärischer Konflikt von 1500 bis 2000. Frankfurt am Main 1989, S. 374
The German version is not available to me, but checking this against Paul Kennedy: "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000", Random House, 1987 I could not find this quote. Not even something remotely similar.
Widening the search for anything like that directly by Wilson was a dead end as well.
As far as I understand formatting of citations, the author implies to get his Wilson quote from Kennedy and either shortens it or splices two closely related sentences into one:
Diplomacy and, if need be, violence must open the way to the (foreign) markets […?][because] US industries have spread to the point where they will burst at the seams if they cannot freely access the world's markets.
Is this quoted out of context, invented, or did Wilson say something to this effect?