Tai has been an exceptionally ineffective USTR in my opinion. Exceptional! At being ineffective for trade. But in tune with Biden on trade. Guess that was her job, vibing with the president, not leading US trade policy formulation. Oh, that was the vibe - don’t formulate a US trade policy.

Economic gravity & multilateral resistance terms are a bitch. If other countries continue integration (lowering bilateral trade costs) & we don’t trade costs with the US rise in a relative sense. We could become a relatively high cost “economic island” of production. & we lose economies of scale!