Macroscope | US should not be so quick to talk up its economic superiority over China
- Divisive talk to encourage the creation of rival power blocs is not welcome when the world is facing global challenges that require multilateral solutions
- Besides, the US is in no place to gloat, as its investments in infrastructure and energy will take time to bear fruit, and its robust consumer spending won’t last
This glowing interpretation can be put on the words of US ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel, who spoke recently to the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan (although he might not welcome the link to the words of journalist Lincoln Steffens who used them after visiting Soviet Russia in 1919).
As Emanuel sees it, the US economy is growing ever stronger as the nation becomes an energy supplier to the world in a time of shortages. The US lead in energy is the “new arsenal of democracy”, he declared, and America is unrivalled in areas like semiconductors, data centres and many more.
Japan and others are flocking to invest in the US, where private firms are joining public-sector entities to invest in areas like infrastructure. The US model grows increasingly attractive to the world, he suggested, exuding confidence to the point of triumphalism.