This is especially true in the Asia Pacific region, where the administration’s Indo-Pacific economic framework (IPEF)—its putative solution to the perceived vacuum of U.S. leadership on trade—has been delayed again and again since it was announced more than six months ago. Even as Biden temporizes over what to do about tariffs on China, other nations are forging ahead on their own, accelerating the division of the world into geopolitical blocs that may no longer include the United States. This is especially true since 2017, when Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, withdrew from Washington’s last major free trade pact, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and imposed a raft of tariffs against friendly nations and rivals alike. Facing a populist revolt against free trade, both 2016 Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton as well as Biden backed away from the TTP despite their earlier support for it.

Perhaps no issue has divided the Biden administration more than U.S. President Joe Biden’s long-stalled trade agenda. Now, the Trump-era tariffs Biden has kept intact are starting to hurt the U.S. economy and, in the aftermath of Russia’s Ukraine invasion, raise serious questions about what critics call a failure of U.S. leadership worldwide.

Perhaps no issue has divided the Biden administration more than U.S. President Joe Biden’s long-stalled trade agenda. Now, the Trump-era tariffs Biden has kept intact are starting to hurt the U.S. economy and, in the aftermath of Russia’s Ukraine invasion, raise serious questions about what critics call a failure of U.S. leadership worldwide.

This is especially true in the Asia Pacific region, where the administration’s Indo-Pacific economic framework (IPEF)—its putative solution to the perceived vacuum of U.S. leadership on trade—has been delayed again and again since it was announced more than six months ago. Even as Biden temporizes over what to do about tariffs on China, other nations are forging ahead on their own, accelerating the division of the world into geopolitical blocs that may no longer include the United States. This is especially true since 2017, when Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, withdrew from Washington’s last major free trade pact, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and imposed a raft of tariffs against friendly nations and rivals alike.