Unhappily, for those who like to imagine that globalization can produce “win-win” finishes, China’s slowdown will be America’s gain. The story of American growth slipping by a point will pale in comparison to the three or even four point slip in China. If the U.S. grows 2.5 percent this year, and China slips to 7 percent, the United States should regain the title it lost to China in 2007: that of the single largest contributor to global growth.
This year, the United States will also grow faster than the global average for the first time since 2003, the year an unprecedented boom in emerging market growth began. For the next four years, emerging market growth doubled to over 7.0 percent, creating the widespread perception that the rich nations of the West were being overtaken by the rise of the poor. Now, the historic norm is reasserting itself — the big emerging nations are slowing dramatically, and the coming years are once again likely to produce more laggards than winners. As of 2007 the emerging markets were on average growing three times faster than the United States; now they are growing only twice as fast.
Evidence of an American revival, against both developed and emerging world competition, is mounting, driven by the traditional strengths of the American economy–its ability to innovate and adapt quickly.
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