The United States has the best engineers because it pays the best. Good engineers from other places move here to capture some of that. Obviously strict licensing laws would get in the way of that.

Outside of some exceptions which don't really exist in the US (shipbuilding and heavy forging) the American companies in those industries are highly competitive and often market share leaders.

> The United States has the best engineers because it pays the best

Nope. There are many counter examples of companies being world leading without paying world leading salaries to their engineers.

It's a big mistake to believe that the only thing all engineers care about is $. Yes it is true for some engineers but not for all.

It's true for most engineers (most human beings, really) and not by a small margin.