To start with, being an engineer is not the best option in most western countries. The culture just labels engineers as nerds and incels and doesn't respect them. They often end up underpaid and neglected by society. So good luck trying to establish an engineering culture in western countries. China succeeded because building things is not viewed in a negative way. Also, historically US obliged other countries to open their markets to American products. Now that there is no American production and the American market is penetrated by foreign products it's not easy to retract into isolationism. And the allegations about bugged devices are also funny when so many people have been avoiding American products after those photos with Cisco products being interdicted and so on.