There is not a country in the world that has thrived without an agricultural, mining or manufacturing base. Today those nations include China, Taiwan, Japan, Germany, Russia, and Iran, Brazil, and Canada. The United States is part of that group too but this nation has seen a significant decline in its manufacturing. Charlie Gibson on ABC News was reporting from Racine, Wisconsin when he pointed out that the town has always been a manufacturing town. The problem is that the United States has been shedding manufacturing jobs for many years.
If you look at the GDP over the years going back to 1967 you find that manufacturing as a percentage of the total has continuously declined. In that year manufacturing was 25.2% of GDP. By 1987 manufacturing had declined to 17.1 %. That was not the end of the decline as it was down to less than 12% in 2005.
When I was in college in the early 1960s there were 30 million people in labor unions. Today the number has declined to 15 million. The reason is the shedding of manufacturing jobs.
Automobile manufacturing has been one of the industries that personifies American manufacturing know how. The problem is that the Japanese, the Germans, and others have taken the lead from the American companies. It’s no wonder. The auto manufacturers in those countries have delivered cars with better quality and higher gasoline efficiency. General Motors share of the U.S. market in 1954 was 54% and imports were play things for the rich. The VW would not arrive in significant numbers until 1955. We all know what happened next. Japan developed superior quality control and that made the names Honda and Toyota synonymous with the word quality. I remember asking an employee of mine in 1983, after he had completed his assignment, “Is that Toyota quality?”
Unless the United States returns to its manufacturing roots and does it better than the rest our nation is in for a very difficult 21st century.
Coast Contact 
American Made: I set out 2 years ago to buy only American made products. I soon found that after careful examination that there are few truly American made products with the exception of locally manufactured products. Even then most are made from foreign made or produced materials such as steel, oil, lumber etc.
I own and operate a small ornamental iron shop. The rub is I can buy steel from Mexico 30% cheaper than American made steel. In order to compete with other producers I am ‘forced’ to buy Mexican steel!!
American manufacturing is locked in a battle to the death struggle with cheap foreign labor, government subsided manufacturing, crop production, oil production.
As long as the American consumer refuses to spend a little more for American made products our manufacturing sector will continue to shrink and American jobs will continue to move off shore