“The US was a relatively poor nation prior to WW2.” This is untrue, the USA has been wealthy since the 1880’s. It did account for over 50% of global GDP in 1946 but this was due to the huge industrial expansion during the war and also the fact that every industrialized country in Europe including Russia and Japan and China had suffered huge material losses. By the 1980’s USA percentage of world GDP was around 28% and today it is c24% and has been around that for the last 20 years. This is not because the US economy has declined but because Europe etc. has recovered from WW2.
“The US was a relatively poor nation prior to WW2.” This is untrue, the USA has been wealthy since the 1880’s. It did account for over 50% of global GDP in 1946 but this was due to the huge industrial expansion during the war and also the fact that every industrialized country in Europe including Russia and Japan and China had suffered huge material losses. By the 1980’s USA percentage of world GDP was around 28% and today it is c24% and has been around that for the last 20 years. This is not because the US economy has declined but because Europe etc. has recovered from WW2.