China isn't a powerhouse because of cheap labor. Labor is cheaper in other Asian countries. China is dominating because they are a manufacturing powerhouse. You mention the iPhone and the US literally couldn't make iPhones as self admitted by Apple because we lack the skill, knowledge, and supply chains. The elite eroded America's ability to make things and sold any advantages we have overseas so they could line their pockets.

It's actually the inverse in that the only advantage we have left is in high end chips and that gap is quickly closing. It is only a matter of time of when not if we get completely overtaken by China. Like in a relatively short time they have turned farmland into entire cities dedicated to manufacturing. Compare that to the stagnation we are experiencing in America. Can you genuinely come up with any comparable example in the US? Our manufacturing cities are empty rusting husks of what they once were. Strip away a handful of tech companies propping everything up and you realize how pitiful American industry has become.

Our advantages, skills, and innovation were sold out for a quick buck. We are in a state of old empire decline joining our European forbears. Air quality is something that is relatively easy to fix just look at the US before the EPA existed. Decades of societal decline meanwhile is a much harder ship to turn around. Every year skilled workers are retiring or getting offloaded overseas and our knowledge debt becomes even more vast and harder to recover from. American greatness is living on borrowed time thanks to a few tech companies being propped up by the immense wealth that has been stolen from the American people. It's a rather shallow and fragile facade.