> America does still manufacture a huge amount of products

US industrial (absolute, not per capita) production hasn't grown since 2007: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/INDPRO

But the population has increased by 13.5%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Sta...

It's one hell of a gamble to rely so much on software "products", while anything that software actually runs on is made in Asia. Building up a software industry will be a lot easier than it was to grow the industrial and tech ecosystem. And that ecosystem will give sweetheart deals to homegrown software, while extorting yours. Sorry, did I say "will"? I meant it's already doing so:

Apple CEO Tim Cook "secretly" signed an agreement worth more than $275 billion with Chinese officials, promising that Apple would help to develop China's economy and technological capabilities - https://www.macrumors.com/2021/12/07/apple-ceo-tim-cook-secr...