Appearing on New Zealand's TV3 News last Saturday, New Zealand's trade minister, Tim Groser, talked about the disappointing developments the day before, June 12, in the U.S. House of Representatives.  The part of that interview that became instantly famous was Mr. Groser's suggestion that, if Congress can't get a trade promotion authority, TPA, bill to the President soon, the TPP negotiations could be on hold for years, perhaps not concluding until 2018.

More broadly, Mr. Groser, in essence, criticized the United States for a lack of vision, which is leaving the U.S., the world's number one economy, "high and dry on the beach." His example: America, he said, rejected China's request for more influence at the World Bank and the IMF, only to see the Chinese successfully establish a rival institution, the Asia Infrastructure Investment and Development Bank. The same thought was expressed more pointedly in David Andelman's USA Today column with the headline "While Washington dithers, China rebuilds Asia in its own image."

Should it be big news here in the United States that Australia and China have just signed a free-trade agreement?   Maybe not, but one ought to be aware of it.  It is a reminder that, whatever happens to TPP, TPA, T-TIP or anything else, other countries will keep making deals, each one of which will affect America in one way or another.  Those deals-especially the ones that come on stream between now and 2018-are much more likely to end up undercutting U.S. producers if the U.S. itself is out of the trade game.

And that is the big question: Is America out of the game?  It is the concern that is buried inside Tim Groser's rock in the road.  And it is the question that serves, although in slightly different forms, as the bookends to Alan Wolff's recent Fortune article, "Four Myths Clouding President Obama's Trade Agenda." 

Mr. Wolff of McKenna Long and Aldridge is a former Deputy USTR and one of America's top trade lawyers.  He is also the chairman of the National Foreign Trade Council.  As the title suggests, his article is an attempt to correct the record with respect to certain of the arguments against TPP. 

His argument in support of investor-state dispute settlement is especially cogent.  "All [an arbitration panel) can do," he writes, "is hold a government accountable for living up to its agreement. The U.S. has no problem with that and never has."

What struck us about the Wolff piece, however, was less his push-back against anti-TPP myths and more his concern about the mood of the country. It was evident in the first paragraph, where he took note of last week's House vote to kill TAA and block TPA.  Of the opponents - labor, environmental groups, and others - he wrote, "[T]hey lashed out against trade agreements, being unable credibly to attack technological progress or the myriad of failures of public policy, including a rotting infrastructure ... that threaten American competitiveness in an interconnected world."

He concluded the piece asking, "Is last week's vote against the only means for the United States to set better standards for international trade an aberration, or is it an inflexion point, with America turning inward, at least for some period?  The latter poses more dangers than moving forward with trade promotion authority."

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We are not so foolish as to try to add much to that thought, at least not here.  With luck, Congress will manage to pass a final TPA bill sooner rather than later.  (There is another vote tomorrow.)  Whether they do or not, however, the U.S. is still a long way from having a shared understanding of its place in the 21st Century or the role of business in America.  Most of the world, for example, looks to trade agreements to create advantages for their companies.  America, it seems, is not so sure.