I was curious about this conjecture that the US doesn&#x27;t make things, while Germany does. So I dug up [0], a table of &quot;Manufacturing, value added (current US$)&quot;, and here are the top five countries for 2013:<p>1: China $2.9bn, 2: United States $1.9bn, 3: Japan $904m, 4: Germany $745m, 5: Korea $368m<p>Manufacturing in Germany may contribute a higher percentage of GDP, but it does not appear to have a larger (in dollars, according to this data) manufacturing base than the US in absolute terms.<p>[0]: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;data.worldbank.org&#x2F;indicator&#x2F;NV.IND.MANF.CD?order=wbapi_data_value_2013+wbapi_data_value&amp;sort=desc" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;data.worldbank.org&#x2F;indicator&#x2F;NV.IND.MANF.CD?order=wba...</a>