The cleanest dirty shirt? The best horse in the glue factory? Whatever analogy you want to use, the U.S. economy is looking strong against a weakening global backdrop. And business leaders are well aware of that.

A new survey finds 17% of CEOs believe that global economic growth will decline in 2015, more than twice as many as last year. That’s according to PricewaterhouseCoopers’ 18th Annual Global CEO Survey released at the start of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Just 37% of CEOs believe that global growth will improve this year. That’s a drop from the 44% in last year’s survey.

There’s a lot to be concerned about. China’s economy saw its slowest growth in 24 years in 2014. With the threat of deflation hanging over Europe, the ECB is getting ready to roll out its own Quantitative Easing plan. Japan’s economy is stuck in the mud. Oil prices have been in sharp decline for more than six months—down more than 50% since June. Not to mention the continued fallout from Russia’s incursion into Ukraine and the upcoming Greek elections adding to more fears about the Eurozone.

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“Here in the United States, we’re used to the idea that the economy finally seems to be getting some traction,” says Yahoo Finance’s Rick Newman, “and that’s just not what is happening overseas.”

The U.S. has become the bright spot once again. The PwC survey found that 38% of CEOs consider the U.S. among their top-three overseas growth markets. For so long, China and other emerging markets were driving growth. “It’s really astonishing that we are back where we started before the recession. The U.S. economy is leading the world once again,” says Newman.

And that means the word “decoupling” is back. Newman says, “President Obama in his State of the Union address said 2014 was a breakthrough year for America. In a sense, it was also the year the U.S. economy broke free of Europe and to some extent Asia.”

But while the U.S. economy can decouple from the global economy to an extent, it cannot fully separate itself.  “It’s not as if we necessarily stand alone," says Newman. "These problems in Europe and Asia could-- and they will-- cause slower growth here in the United States.”

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