Over the past 20 years, the U.S. has run a near $5 trillion surplus in financial, digital and other tech “services” that are often not counted or undercounted in our trade deficit figures.

According to a 2023 analysis by the Council of Economic Advisers, “Digitally-enabled services encompass those services predominantly delivered over information and communication technologies (ICT) networks. Some examples of digitally-enabled services include licenses to use computer software, cloud computing/data storage services, and royalty payments for industrial designs to manufacture specialized equipment.

In other words, in global trade, the U.S. has come to dominate the technology service industries of the future, while the rest of the world provides America with the mundane and low value-added products of the past.

We are winning.