A new Global Wealth Report, published annually by Credit Suisse, has provided a fresh new look at the economic dynamics of the global economic and political system, which has been primarily led by the United States since the end of the Cold War. A system that was helping develop global wealth in the years prior to the financial crisis now appears to be a system that is instead starting to favor the U.S. more than other countries. 

This Credit Suisse report tracks the wealth of households throughout the world using government data and modeling. The quality of this data can sometimes be called into question, specifically when examining countries that don’t have the best track record of democracy. For example, Bloomberg pointed out that in Russia, Credit Suisse puts "the nonfinancial wealth per adult at $8,840 in 2018" despite the fact that 87.3% of adults own homes where $8,840 would only be enough to purchase 15.7 sq. meters of housing. Russians live on an average of 23 sq. meters, according to official Russian statistics. 

However this report is still regarded as one of the solid efforts to produce this data on a level playing field so that a country's economic standing in the world can be measured by household wealth instead of GDP.

Here is the change in household wealth, broken down by region, from 2017 to 2018:

Historically, the American-led system has been beneficial for other global economic participants. Global wealth has almost tripled to $317 trillion in 2018 from $117 trillion in 2000. The combined share held of wealth held by North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, has dropped from 92% to 78%, indicating that the world is catching up to the highest wealth countries. However much of this growth happened before 2007 and a lot of the regional redistribution of wealth and has been a result of China, which has increased its share of global wealth to 16.4% from just 3.1% in 2000.

However, wealth trends have been less inclusive over the last decade and have instead favored the United States.

According to the last seven years of reports, North America has been the only region that has not had an annual decrease in wealth while at the same time consistently outperforming the global rate of wealth growth. China and Europe underperformed for three years of the seven and other regions did worse. Africa and Latin America both saw their wealth grow slower over the last seven years.

The obvious conclusion is that United States-led economics and politics have favored none other than the United States. And that’s not to say that this has been unfair to other countries; rather, just that the US may be experiencing the most recent tailwind as a result of policy. "The U.S. uses the power of the dollar, extraterritorial sanctions, even military force to maximize its wealth at others’ expense," a recent Bloomberg article concludes.

And those who are critical of United States policies and who want to take shots at the "the king of the hill" now have more ammunition, as President Trump‘s administration is clearly favoring "America first" policy when it comes to trade and other areas of economics that could have otherwise lent a helping hand to countries in our wake.