THE US is “the last bastion of ambition”, one UK trader has said, and he expects more Brits to head across the pond in the months ahead as they leave an economy being strangled by its Government’s dire political leadership and extraordinary fiscal mismanagement.
Trader David Belle spoke to UK news agency Newspage in the aftermath of new data from the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) showing that UK GDP growth is projected to ease to 1.2% in 2026, due to the continued effect of budgetary tightening on consumption and to the drag from global uncertainty.
The OECD predicts UK growth will edge up to 1.3% in 2027, supported by business investment and exports as financial conditions and global trade improve — and a neutral domestic UK monetary policy stance.
While the OECD also expects real GDP growth in the US to slow to 2% in 2025 and 1.7% in 2026 before picking up to 1.9% in 2027, Belle, the Founder of Fink Money, says the ‘brain drain’ in Starmer’s UK is seeing entrepreneurs and wealth creators leave the country on a scale never seen before.
He is one himself, having recently departed the UK for Portugal.
US economy wins on ambition
Having digested the OECD figures and diagnosis for both the UK and US, Belle lamented the fate of the UK and longed for the amibition and drive of its long-term ally.
He said: “I would love this country to have the ambition and appetite for risk of America. Under this UK Government, the number of entrepreneurs leaving the UK is reaching warp speed.
“People are escaping a growth-constrained economy because they see a Government out of ideas and out of its depth. I am one of them. Before you know it, many of us Brits will be your neighbours, as more and more of us are moving to the US. The US is the last bastion of ambition.
“The level of risk and ambition is what drives growth higher and the UK has none of that. It’s gone. The UK is rich in talent, but that talent is underpaid, underinvested and overtaxed. The result? A brain drain.
“The world’s largest, best and most innovative companies are based in the US, creating a hell of a lot of money and wealth. As for the UK? It has become a shadow of its former self.”
America and UK face same brutal reality
But some believe both economies face an identical structural onslaught in the form of the unfolding AI revolution — and that neither will come through it unscathed.
Colette Mason, Author & AI Consultant at UK-based AI consultancy, Clever Clogs AI, said: “The US at 1.7% growth in 2026 versus the UK at 1.2% looks like a win, but both numbers mask the same brutal reality: we’re in the valley before automation abundance kicks in.
“Job losses will accelerate hard before new roles emerge, and white collar workers are about to discover they’re not immune. The gap between losing old jobs and creating new ones ? That’s where the pain lives.
“Both the US and UK economy are facing the same structural shift: low-grade knowledge work is getting automated out of existence. The US might grow slightly faster, but American workers in admin, basic analysis and routine customer service roles will hit unemployment just as hard as their UK counterparts.
“Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warns of a potential “white-collar bloodbath” with AI possibly displacing 20% of jobs in the next 1-5 years.
“With that in mind, the question isn’t which economy grows faster, it’s which one manages the transition better because the job losses are coming either way, and abundance only follows if we don’t botch the deployment.”
Neoliberal sclerosis
Another AI expert, Rohit Parmar-Mistry, Founder at UK-based AI firm, Pattrn Data, said the OECD’s prognosis for the US and UK economies isn’t “a race between a hare and a tortoise, it’s a race between two exhausted runners”.
He continued: “For a dynamic economy like the US, 1.7% is mediocre. It proves that the US is suffering from the same ‘neoliberal sclerosis’ as the UK, obsessing over stock market highs while the real economy grinds to a halt.
“The only reason the UK is trailing by that small a margin is because we’ve added self-inflicted anchors to the boat. We have IR35 punishing our flexible workforce, the friction of Brexit and a government doubling down on austerity in disguise.
“The lesson for the US isn’t that you are winning. The lesson is that if you adopt the UK’s habit of red tape and under-investment, that 0.5% gap will vanish, and we will both be stuck at the bottom.”
But for Prem Raja, Head of Trading Floor at London-based Currencies 4 You, a forex broker, the safe money is very much on the US: “The OECD forecasts confirm the US economy is significantly stronger than the UK’s. The projected growth gap underscores the greater resilience of the US market.
“The weak Pound (£1.30 to $1) reflects this divergence, signalling lower confidence in the UK’s outlook, domestic challenges and further fiscal constraints imposed by the Labour government in its recent Budget.”
Photo by DAVIDCOHEN on Unsplash
