President Obama heads for Asia this week to talk about U.S. economic recovery and reform, and one theme that we expect he'll hear from Asian leaders is this: America is leaving itself behind as the rest of the world tries to liberalize trade. The numbers tell the story. At least 266 bilateral or regional trade deals are in force, according to the World Trade Organization, and there are roughly 100 more of which the WTO has not yet been formally informed. The U.S. is a party to only five of the 64 trade pacts that have taken effect since 2005âwith Australia, Morocco, Bahrain, Oman and Peru.