In the uncertain years after the Second World War, U.S political leaders erected a credit-financed, consumption-led economic framework. It was designed in large part to support job creation and the economic growth of its Cold War allies. The strategy succeeded. The United States won the Cold War but the strategy put in place a set of conditions that are now the central challenge of the next U.S. presidency.
With the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Cold War ended and democratic and market liberalism became the foundations of future global growth.
Import susbtitution and later export-led growth strategies were key ingredients of the economic recovery plans of world war II scarred Japan and Germany and other Western ally countries surrounding the former USSR and China.