India, Sept. 4 -- Jagga Najak is 29 years old, and smiles hesitantly during a video phone call. But behind the smile are deep signs of worry. He has been slogging for seven years, working 12-hour shifts in a power loom in Surat (Gujarat). Jagga is not sure which companies buy the fabric that he, and his colleagues, weave. But he is sure that the product is exported. His earnings gave him the confidence to get married. The marriage was in the works for a year or so. His parents, who live in a village in the Ganjam district of Odisha even found a bride.

He is not so sure anymore. Jagga is caught in a conundrum that has nothing to do with him. The origins of his anxieties, doubts and frustrations are thousands of miles away, in Washington's...