The Largest Exporter

I've been trying to get a handle on this chart. This chart shows the 10 largest exporting countries in the world.

The largest exporting country in the world is Germany, not China! After all the talk about China being the largest exporter to America and how American jobs are moving to China, I expected China to be the largest exporting country, certainly not a small country like Germany.

I have lots of questions. How can Germany be the largest exporting country? China has 10+ times the population of Germany. How can a country the size of Germany (45 million workers) have enough resources to out produce China (808 million workers) and the United States (155 million workers)? One third of Germany is still covered by forests. Notice that Germany's exports are greater than its imports. How is Germany able to export so much material goods and not require a greater import of raw materials? You would think Germany would be draining all of its natural resources since the output is greater than the input. What is it that Germany is exporting that the US doesn't appear to buy a lot of ? Germany doesn't rank high on the import list for the United States.

I also have lots of questions about the US. Why does the US and the UK import so much more than they export? These two countries look distorted on the chart especially the US. People do things for a reason. Why does the US and UK choose to import so much more than it exports seemingly to its harm? What belief mechanism is causing this that the other countries in the world don't see? Are the US and UK becoming more efficient and getting lower prices for its goods? According to economic theory distortions become self-correcting. Why has this imbalance not corrected in 20+ years? What drives it one way? Is the US in some kind of transitioning to a better economy moving away from manufacturing to higher level types of work or to a more failing economy to balance out the difference between incomes in the US and China/India?

Why is the US no longer a technological leader in many fields? If we want to upgrade our harbors to more efficiently load and unload cargo containers ships, we have to buy from the Chinese or Japanese. They have the best equipment, software, and experience for managing this process. If we want the best TVs or cars, we buy either Japanese, Korean, or German. Fortunately, we still have the prowess in computer processor design but how long will we maintain that as companies like Intel and Microsoft start offloading design experience to China. We are more advanced in Agriculture technology. We do have a very creative Silicon valley that keeps generating ideas like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc. but many of these aren't making a lot of money. We've got creativity going for us, but we're being held back. South Korea's cellular phone and Internet are years ahead of the US. Why is our environment moving so slowly. We do have the outstanding iPhone but it could do much more if the carriers could move forward.

I'm puzzled, puzzled, puzzled.