After the WW2 ended the US government sent US Army officers to Japan and Germany to help teach them how to recover and market items. From pottery, electronic and auto, we showed them how.
The US Gov sent RCA Victrola Corp techs to Japan and showed them how to manufacture electronics and even subsidized the JVC (Japanese Victrola Corparation) build up.
The food stuff that the Army was feeding troops was CRAP. Poor quality and bad tasting. So to make it, CRAP, taste better a US Army Officer went to Japan and helped a Lab make a byproduct from boiling seaweed. The byproduct was a white power that when sprinkled on CRAP food, it tasted better. POOF, MSG was made and is still used to make CRAP food taste better.
US Gov went to Stuttgart Germany and helped Dr Porsche bail out his Auto group. Same with Stuttgart's Mercedes group....
This went on after even the Korean war, the US Gov help bail out Southern Korea's industries.....
SO, WE shot our self's in the foot and have nothing to blame the foreign manufacturers for taking our money.
Your premise is so far off it's almost laughable.
Had not we did what you mentioned of getting our defeated enemies back on their feet, we likely would today be the lone democracy in the world, our standard of living would be second tier, and English would not be a nearly universal language.
Our problem is mainly three fold, a consumer addiction for cheap products, greed for profits all the way down the corporate line, and taking our eye off the ball on making a better mousetrap at an efficient cost.
It has nothing to do with "shooting ourselves in the foot" post war.
Do read any books, or is this just internet sound bite wisdom you are repeating?
Reality check, that half the population is smarter then 50% of the people and it's a constantly contested fact.
