New Delhi, April 3 -- The United States Trade Representative (USTR) is a cabinet-rank official whose office is embedded in the Executive Office of the President of the US. The USTR on its website is described as "the president's principal trade advisor, negotiator, and spokesperson on trade issues." Created by a legislative act in 1962, the USTR has historically proclaimed its alignment with the World Trade Organization (WTO) as a leveller of the global trade playing field.

In the years before and after the Indian reforms of 1991, the then USTR Carla Hills was a frequent visitor to the ministry of commerce in Udyog Bhavan, with a sheaf of documented Indian violations of WTO rules. The mosquitoes in Udyog Bhavan must not have improved her...