FOR countries in the Indo-Pacific wondering whether it would ever be possible to decouple their economies from China’s, last week was quite dispiriting.

In San Francisco, the US corporate grandees welcomed Xi Jinping with an enthusiastic ovation.

The Chinese leader spoke warmly of the possibility that a “revitalising” US economy could engage with China to mutual benefit.

Meanwhile, US Trade Representative (USTR) Katherine Tai has reportedly informed colleagues in Asia that a critical pillar of US President Joe Biden’s big offer to the region – the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) – may have to be put on pause.

The United States was already seen from this side of the Pacific as an unreliable partner. The suspension will merely reinforce concerns that, when it comes to growing trade, countries might well be on their own.

IPEF wasn’t the most attractive proposition to start off with. No tariff reductions or increased market access were on the table. Of the framework’s four pillars, the one on trade always had the least substance.

Nevertheless, it was the one that mattered most to US partners. Efforts towards harmonising trade standards at least signalled the United States’ continuing engagement in the region as an economic player.

It was the only hope, essentially, for a positive agenda for growth and globalisation in the Indo-Pacific that went beyond mere defence against Chinese economic coercion.

Unfortunately, even relatively minimal steps towards harmonising regulations and easing digital trade appear impossible for the United States to deliver.

Democrats from the Midwest such as Senator Sherrod Brown seem to think that for the United States even to be talking about trade will lose them re-election.

Coastal progressives such as Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren resent any agreement on digital trade that might make it harder to bully US tech companies.

A bit of disagreement is fine. Nobody expects everyone in the US Congress to agree with trade policy, and much of what’s being discussed wouldn’t need Congressional authorisation anyway.

Many suspect that the whole point of having a “framework” and not an “agreement” is so that Biden can proceed by executive action.

But the fact is that the IPEF trade pillar is both so intangible and so much an outgrowth of existing US policy that it’s hard to imagine how it could threaten a single job in Ohio, Brown’s home state.

The digital trade policy, meanwhile, is meant to counter government attempts, usually on behalf of national monopolies, to wall off access to data. Those most likely to benefit from the free flow of data are smaller companies that depend upon the growth of services trade.

Warren and her allies hold a more conspiratorial view. The senator’s office produced a 22-page report earlier this year that claimed Big Tech had infiltrated the US Commerce Department and the USTR.

That the administration didn’t care to defend its signature Indo-Pacific proposal against such weak arguments from those within its own party tells its own story.

When IPEF was launched, India chose not to participate in the trade pillar. This looked like yet more proof of New Delhi’s unwillingness to open its own markets.

India’s commerce minister, Piyush Goyal, argued at the time that everyone involved seemed very distant from a consensus on what trade in the region should look like. His skepticism now appears prescient.

The US administration is trying to portray agreements on the other IPEF pillars – warm and fuzzy subjects such as clean energy and action against corruption – as being sufficient.

It’s also claimed that “progress” has been made on the trade pillar, which will “continue … in the weeks and months ahead to reach a high-standard trade pillar outcome.”

Hardly anyone believes this. Just two weeks ago, Tai expected the trade talks to be concluded by San Francisco.

No country in the Indo-Pacific wants to wind up dependent upon a China that has shown it is willing to use its economic heft for political ends.

But the long wait for the United States to provide them with an alternative economic proposition seems to have been fruitless.

While the message that came through last week may have been unintended, it was nonetheless clear: If Asia is to take on Chinese economic power, it is on its own. — Bloomberg

Mihir Sharma is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. The views expressed here are the writer’s own.