Worked as a chemical systems technician for a bit. Can confirm, lots of the chemicals we used (most, some of which were pharma grade but we weren't pharma), had to come from either China or Germany. And we really did try to source as much in the US as possible. So it wasn't even a question of cost, it was simply no one here wanted to make what we needed.

Now granted, I'm not naive enough to think we should be able to be self-sufficient and manufacture everything ourselves. I think it is fine to import stuff. My bigger concern is, for some things, there just isn't a lot of options. I think its fine to buy some of the raw materials from Germany and China, but I'd also like to see a few more countries that they could be bought from.