Again, what @jarcane said. There are more than zero people in the US making great kitchen knives. The number is, fortunately, growing. I'm in talks with two US

Again, what @jarcane said. There are more than zero people in the US making great kitchen knives. The number is, fortunately, growing. I'm in talks with two US makers and a Canadian, in addition to a couple from Europe. As has already been said, it is a matter of economics and culture. High-end American makers are able to consistently get more money from outdoor knives. Not to discredit that category of knives, but rough outdoor knives can be made much more easily and emphasize toughness and wear resistance and aesthetics at the upper end, with subtle elements of cutting performance being difficult to evaluate. We have a long history of sought-after outdoor and pocket knives in the US. For this, Japanese knifemakers turn to the US and studied with people like Bob Loveless. Despite outdoor and pocket knives being cherished, the orientation to kitchen knives in the US has long been held as utilitarian. My guess as to why? Because kitchen knives were tools for women, and chefs (a class of people long thought of as outcasts) bought from Europe when they cared. The client base of most all custom or upgraded or modified consumable tools/vehicles/electronics/etc. is male dominated. We don't have a strong history of swordmaking and we readily abandoned them in favor of guns. Guns not being a significant part of Japan's industrial history, the Japanese continued their craft of swords until public carry was outlawed. A lot of these multi-generational swordmaking families found a market in making kitchen knives. I would totally support you in learning knifemaking. I think it's an awesome craft. Reading about how to make high-performing kitchen knives though, might first require learning to read Japanese. Great kitchen knives can be made within your first few years, but it's rare, and at the end your knives will be more expensive than their Japanese counterparts. Chefs don't need to import knives from Japan, they can get them all over the US. Sure we want a strong knife in our restaurant kitchens, but it's a tool that we're attached to for 16 hours a day. It's an extension of who we are as chefs, and you can tell a lot about one based on their knives. I demanded finesse from my cooks, and it's hard to understand finesse with a hamhanded tool.