China's dominance of the EV market is a recent case in point. China went from having approximately zero percent of the EV market in 2008 to completely dominating by the end of 2024 with an end to end vertically integrated EV manufacturing capability and a definite technological edge in some of the most critical areas. It took a decade plus of stringent protection for the fledgling EV industry and a couple of hundred billion dollars in subsidies, but they have ensured their dominance of the EV industry for a generation at the very least.
The US on the other hard, applied tariffs in an indiscriminate, chaotic manner(no one sane is going to invest anything when US policy depends on the whim of the president) and applied it even to raw materials which our remaining industries desperately need.
Also, instead of creating sound industrial policy, we seem to be hell bent on destroying the very foundations of US dominance in many industries by actively attacking science and technology in the country, from gutting scientifically focused agencies to waging a vicious war on universities and foreign students.
All of this for what? To add 5 trillion to our debt by passing a tax cut that predominantly benefits corporations and billionaires? To make the MAGA base feel good about making life miserable for 'the others'? This truly feels like the beginning of the end for the American empire or even the American experiment.
You can never count out the American capability for reinvention, but at some point, patches and refactorings stop working and you need a rewrite.