Quite a bit of "Silicon Valley" was founded on outright theft from competitors. Now that the American industry is entrenched and "protect intellectual property" dominates over "improvement", falling behind other nations is inevitable.
One of the risks of any belief in American exceptionalism is that it hides the reality that there’s nothing special about America to have deserved its position in industry and commerce. There’s no special reason why it might not soon be someone else’s turn.
I don't really follow how your statement relates to o11c's. The theft they are referring to is of other American companies - not other countries' IP.