The US was the world's largest economy even before WWI: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/2000-years-economic-history-one-chart/ https://www.visualcapitalist.co

The US was the world's largest economy even before WWI: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/2000-years-economic-history-one-chart/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/2000-years-economic-history... Plenty of countries (Germany, France, Japan, etc.) are only slightly poorer than the US per capita, but have much smaller land area/population and therefore smaller GDP. Size matters!