The U.S. Department of Commerce is scheduled to release second-quarter economic data in late July. According to a Wall Street Journal survey conducted in July, economists generally expect U.S. GDP to grow at an annualized rate of 9.1% in the second quarter, with GDP returning to pre-pandemic levels.

The survey expects the U.S. economy to maintain solid growth in the coming year under the combined effect of job growth, household savings, and fiscal policy, but the growth rate will gradually slow down. Economic growth is expected to slow to 7% in the third quarter of this year and 6.9% for the whole year, before slowing to 3.2% in 2022 and 2.3% in 2023.

I believe that the U.S. economy would grow at around 2% in 2022, which is a little less than Wall Street now estimates. It could be a little higher if the U.S. manages to roll out a massive infrastructure plan in 2022. Taking into account factors such as the pandemic, this estimate counts the economic growth rate in 2021 as a compound growth rate, which means treating it as two years of growth (if divided by two, the annual growth rate is around 3.5%). This figure is also consistent with the previous highest growth rate in the United States, which was around 4%.

In the case of the U.S., with the measures to boost growth have peaked, neither employment nor consumption is likely to increase, and the question then will be how to halt the downward trend. The situation in 2022 is expected to be quite difficult, as the growth rate in that year will be calculated on a high growth basis. However, one thing is for sure, that 2022 will be the toughest year for all countries in the world, including China. This was the observation and conclusion I made in 2019, and it stays true now.