United States: Long-run growth and China challenge – Commerzbank

Commerzbank’s Bernd Weidensteiner and Christoph Balz describe the United States as a long‑term growth success, driven by population gains, immigration and productivity, but now facing a serious challenge from China. They note that China already surpasses the US in GDP on a purchasing‑power‑parity basis, while the US still leads when measured at market exchange rates.

Strong US trend growth faces new rival

"For Americans, what matters is not so much the country’s ranking in international comparisons, but rather the trend in per capita economic output. And here, growth over the past 250 years has shown remarkable consistency. Real GDP per capita has grown at a long-term rate of about 1¾% per year."

"The most significant deviation from the trend occurred in the 1930s, when the economy slumped sharply during the Great Depression, but then returned relatively quickly to its previous trend."

"What does the future hold? With China, an economic power has emerged in the 21st century that can seriously challenge the U.S. for global economic leadership. In terms of purchasing power parity, China has been number one since 2016; by 2025, the Chinese economy was about one-third larger than the U.S. economy."

"However, when converted at market exchange rates, the U.S. still leads. Exchange rate trends (noting that the exchange rate for the renminbi, China’s currency, is by no means determined freely by the market but is influenced by the Chinese government) and the high nominal growth of the U.S. economy—driven by inflation—have widened the gap again in recent years."

"While this steady transformation was often painful, it was nonetheless an inevitable consequence of an economy that has marked the world’s “technological frontier” for nearly 150 years."

(This article was created with the help of an Artificial Intelligence tool and reviewed by an editor.)