The president of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, Cecilia Rouse, said the United States must invest heavily in its workforce, infrastructure, research and

development to maintain its competitiveness vis - à - vis China and remain the world's largest economy.

At an online symposium organized by a research center in Washington, Rouse added that American investments in research and development have fallen by a third as a percentage of economic output since 1960, while infrastructure spending has halved over the past 50 years.

The United States was in "last place by a significant difference" in spending on its labour force, compared with other developed economies.