For several presidencies, including those of Obama and Clinton, the U.S. trade representative has been keeper of the orthodoxy. U.S. policies ignored the fate of domestic manufacturing. Instead, they pursued a brand of globalism by and for multinational corporations, especially financial ones.

Biden’s USTR nominee will signal whether he is serious about rebuilding U.S. industry and jobs. In previous pieces, I’ve reported on the efforts of two of the ultraorthodox candidates, Jennifer Hillman and Miriam Sapiro, to get the position. That’s probably not going to happen—they are just too radioactive for much of the Democratic Party.

Two leading contenders are currently Katherine Tai, the lead trade counsel on the House Ways and Means Committee, and Rep. Jimmy Gomez of California.

Politico recently ran a valentine to Tai, headlined "Everyone Likes Katherine Tai," which was heavily influenced by the office of Sen. Sherrod Brown.

Tai indeed gets along with progressives. But as a staffer ultimately responsible to Ways and Means Chairman Richie Neal, as corporate a Democrat as it gets, she is trusted by corporate types as well.

They other contender heavily promoting himself for the job is Rep. Jimmy Gomez. He was one of the negotiators in the revised NAFTA deal, known as USMCA. But other than that brief stint, Gomez has no background in trade.

Diversity politics will influence this pick. Gomez is Latino; Tai is Asian American. Biden has a Latino problem, not a problem with Asian Americans. If the political staff has a major role, Gomez is the more logical pick.

Of the two, however, Tai would be a lot better than Gomez, who would be at risk of being rolled by the corporate lobbies and their allies in the USTR bureaucracy.

Still better would be two progressives being promoted by the labor movement: Mike Wessel, a leading activist trade lawyer, and Thea Lee, president of the Economic Policy Institute. These now seem long shots.

That’s a pity. Trump’s trade policy got tough with China mainly at the level of belligerent rhetoric and scattershot tariffs, but not coupled with any kind of industrial policy. The Biden administration will either build on the new reality with a more coherent China and industrial-strategy policy—or try to restore the old trade regime. A Wessel or a Lee would focus on the former.

And USTR is only one of a suite of top positions that affect trade. For more on that, click here.