ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the main features of the Spanish imperial system. It explores its characteristics as an ideological and economic model and the extent to which it affected the international diplomatic background by the formulation of a new policy on colonial trade with America during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The development of a foreign policy in Spain was specifically determined by the influence of the parties of the court either in favour or against a change of dynasty, and above all of the awareness that the Spanish commercial system was in decline. The development of an exclusivist commercial policy with the American colonies led to the consolidation of an imperialist and unifying ideology based on the defence of the Catholic faith. In terms of territory, the Hispanic Monarchy, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, was a superpower becoming hegemonic in Europe once the various territories came under its jurisdiction.
