‘Excited and Terrified’: On a High-Stakes Trip to China, Gina Raimondo Confronts a Complex Future

A former ambulance driver was whizzing me through the rainy streets of Shanghai to meet an eight-car motorcade and—hopefully—U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. She’d been a hard person to wrangle during her three-day diplomatic trip to China, and I had been given the smallest of windows for a face-to-face interview: just 15 minutes in the back of her vehicle, en route to an engagement.

The trip had been a whirlwind: Earlier Wednesday morning, I had seen the 52-year-old cabinet member …

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