That's a fair criticism of Romer's idea and one that deserves careful scrutiny. It does beg the question, however, exactly what political problems stopped the

That's a fair criticism of Romer's idea and one that deserves careful scrutiny. It does beg the question, however, exactly what political problems stopped the Honduras project from going forward. The Podcast cited above focused on the personalities and personal resentments but there was clearly more going on behind the scenes. Romer himself was very circumspect about what actually happened. For example in the Atlantic article Romer suggests driving things through non-US countries. This might not be pure coincidence.