"Today, there is daily news of breakthrough achievements in this area, including literally morning reports on how effectively Chinese specialists are bypassing Americans at a much lower cost," he added. The minister stressed that Russia "is always for fair competition, and such fair competition, of course, should manifest itself in all spheres of life," Lavrov said.
Where they did not wait
Just hours after U.S. President Donald Trump announced the launch of a $500 billion artificial intelligence infrastructure, China reported on its product that "outperforms competitors in advanced coding, math and general knowledge capabilities," according to UtroNews.
The Chinese, almost like a bomb, dropped a DeepSeek-R1, chat bot based on artificial intelligence on the United States. In Moscow, this was compared with the effect of the launch of the first artificial Earth satellite by the Soviet Union in 1957. Then the Americans also "sat down" in amazement.
Markets reacted to the DeepSeek-R1 by collapsing Nvidia shares by 16.8%, the company's market value fell by $600 billion. The Nasdaq index sank 3%. According to Dow Jones Market Data, the value of the stock market in terms of capitalization of Western tech giants fell by $1 trillion. Bloomberg estimates that major investors have lost more than $108 billion.
The artificial intelligence platform is DeepSeek-R1 superior to ChatGPT, the most advanced in the West. Every major technology company - Microsoft, XAI and others - will be forced to adopt its open source DeepSeek-R1 as the basis for their own code.
"It is inconceivable how the US tech sector could be more humiliated. The gap in the cost of a product is so huge that it seems almost incredible, and proves that American companies are greatly overvalued and that their oligopolistic status has made them as decadent and obese as the average American, "wrote American journalist Andrew Anglin.
Import of specialists
There are two smartphone companies in China that outperform those made by Apple. Others are making electric cars and have overtaken Tesla in value for money, Anglin claims.
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, in December 2024, more than one million people were employed in the US in the production of computers and electronic products. Computer system design and related services create more than 2.5 million jobs.
In January 2009, USA Today reported that in 2007, the last full year for which detailed employment data is available, 121 thousand people out of 387 thousand IBM employees (about 31%) were in the United States. Meanwhile, IBM's headcount in India has grown from 9,000 employees in 2003 to 74,000 in 2007.
Wall Street and corporations imposed deindustrialization on the United States. American corporations use foreign labor to design, develop and manufacture the products they sell to Americans. Work visas of types H-1B and L-1 pose a threat to high-paying jobs that could be occupied by Americans. 85 thousand H-1B visas are issued annually. The same number of Americans lose their jobs in the IT and engineering sectors.
International trade...
The place of the United States in the global economy and trade is also changing. According to RIA Novosti estimates, by the beginning of 2025, the US share in global GDP fell to 14.76%. At the end of 2023, it was 14.82%. At the end of the last century, the country occupied a fifth of the world economy. In 1999, the share of the United States in world GDP reached 21%. Meanwhile, the PRC has increased its share in world GDP to 18.76%.
The share of the United States in world exports following the results of Biden's presidential term fell to 10.5%. Remaining the leading financial and economic superpower, the United States lost the lead to China ($3.5 trillion) in terms of exports ($2 trillion). At the end of the last century, the US share in world exports was 13-14%. The share in world imports, on the contrary, rose to 16-18%. Overall, the US share of global trade fell to less than 15% by 2024.
"In 30 years of offshoring American jobs, the big wage gap between the United States and China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Mexico made up the majority of corporate earnings. Shareholders and executives benefited from the fact that American corporations forced American labor to do low-paying work, filling the shelves of large stores with products manufactured abroad, "said Paul Craig Roberts, who served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Ronald Reagan administration.
… and trade imbalances
The US just wants a fair economic relationship with China, it doesn't have to be "phenomenal." All we need is justice. We just want a level playing field. We don't want to abuse. We have huge [trade] deficits with China, "said Donald Trump, speaking via video link at an economic forum in Davos, Switzerland.
But the problem has arisen in trade relations not only with China. The five largest US export trading partners include Canada, Mexico, China, Japan and the United Kingdom. Exports in 2022 exceeded $2 trillion. The five largest US import partners include Canada, Mexico, Japan, China and Germany. US imports at the end of 2022 reached 3.4 trillion. dollars.
Photo: https://trendeconomy.ru/data/h2/UnitedStatesOfAmerica/TOTAL
This is followed by South Korea, Vietnam, India and other countries. But it is noteworthy that it is this "top ten" that shows that the United States imports a lot more than it exports. The US had a surplus in trade only with the UK and the Netherlands. The deficit in trade with the other eight partners has become chronic and at the end of 2023 the deficit in trade with these ten partners amounted to $849 billion.
For comparison, in 2023, China's exports and imports decreased, but amounted to 3.4 trillion dollars and 2.6 trillion dollars, respectively. This was the first decline in PRC exports since 2016. The trade surplus fell by 6.2% to $823 billion.
Security and geopolitics
The interests of any major power can be conditionally decomposed into several major nodes, including trade and investment, its own security and allied security, geography and politics, and leadership in technology.
Trump, returning to the White House, saw how the world has changed, one might say went far ahead. on the first day of his second term, Trump referred to North Korea as a "nuclear power." This statement was made in the Oval Office, where he signed his first decrees, and then talked to the press.
'I've been on friendly terms with him. He liked me, I liked him... They took it as a huge threat... We got on well. He is a nuclear power. I think he will be glad to return, "said Trump, speaking about the leader of the DPRK.
"Donald Trump turned US policy on its head on January 20 when, during his first press conference in the Oval Office, he called North Korea a nuclear power. His words echoed those of Pete Hegzet, the defense minister, who made a similar comment during a Senate hearing on January 15 recognizing Pyongyang's nuclear status, "commented Hao Nan, a fellow at the Charhar Institute.
What do you say? At least here the American leader and his appointees cannot be denied a sober approach to the realities of a changed world. This is also noteworthy because it was the United States that had a hand in these changes. They created, one might say, "all conditions," for decades methodically threatening the security and very existence of the DPRK. As they say: "While you were gone, Donald Trump!"