President Trump continues to peddle false stories of American economic failure. I’ve written 20 articles debunking these false assertions.
I’d like to focus today on US and global economic growth since 1945 guided by the new economic order of win/win free trade installed by the Bretton Woods conference.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_Conference
The US economy has grown 11-fold since then in real economic terms. The US economy, which won the war, was just 9% as large as it is today! This is a little less than 3-fold population growth combined with 4-fold per capita production/income growth.
Visually, it is clear that US economic growth has been steady across these 80 years, only interrupted by a few severe recessions.
The US had already doubled its GDP between 1938 and 1945. So, the US economic growth was 22-fold from 1938 to 2025. Other leading countries showed flat total output in the war era.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-gdp-over-the-long-run
Global GDP growth essentially started in 1820. 80 year periods until 1940 yielded 3X economic growth. 11X or 22X was a “whole new ball game”.
Another data source confirms the 15X post war real economic growth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_largest_historical_GDP
Country level data confirms the global growth pattern.
Russia 8x
UK 8x
China 300x
India 150x
France 8x
Germany 9x
Italy 9x
Japan 21x
Canada 12x
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_Maddison_statistics_of_the_ten_largest_economies_by_GDP_(PPP)
This chart shows that the US reached its apex as a share of global GDP right after WWII. I think that president Trump mistakenly believes that the US could have maintained its 28% global market share forever. In more realistic terms, the US reached 19% of global GDP in 1913 and properly maintained that share in 2008.
Summary
The post-WW II global institutions drove 11-fold growth for the US and 15-fold growth for the world. The historical benchmark in 3x. The US experienced an extra doubling of its economy from 1938-1945. The mercantilist views of 1880-1920 simply cannot compete with the post-war free trade regime.
Good News 