"After a tumultuous year marked by President Donald Trump's return to the White House and his swing towards tariffs and protectionism, recent growth has outpaced the expectations of most analysts. In a speech this month, Trump hailed his economic record, insisting that the US was on the cusp of an economic boom the likes of which the world has never seen."
"After a modest expansion in the first half of 2025, gross domestic product (GDP) growth blasted past expectations in the July-September quarter to reach an annualised 4.3 percent. That was the strongest performance in two years. It was also well ahead of the US's fellow developed countries. During the third quarter, the eurozone's and the United Kingdom's economies grew just 2.3 percent and 1.3 percent, respectively, on an annualised basis. Japan, the world's fourth largest economy, contracted 2.3 percent during the period."
The United States economy entered 2026 with stronger growth than peer advanced economies, propelled by a surprise 4.3 percent annualised GDP expansion in the July–September quarter. Much of the recent strength stems from multibillion-dollar AI investments by a handful of tech giants such as Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet, with some estimates attributing about 40 percent of 2025 growth to AI-related spending. Political shifts toward tariffs and protectionism accompanied the upturn, and while many analysts forecast transformative effects from AI, others warn the technology may be overhyped. Underlying weaknesses and widespread public pessimism about living standards point to risks ahead.
Read at www.aljazeera.com
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