Brazil and China, which are as big as the USA in land (both) and population (China) have IDs as well. All IDs are issues by the nation-state but usable in other EU countries.

I mean yeah, not free but a minimal fee like 20$ or something, doable in an easy place., the problem is not really the ability or will, but political polarization that makes even reasonable propositions become weaponized.

It's not a pointless expense if it is integrated into other systems like healthcare, driving licence, and for example, online identification to do taxes and such. You cannot meaningfully digitalize bureaucracy without standard IDs.