Section II essentially gave an analytical statistical overview of the relationship between the United States and the EAI countries in a comparative context. But we were not able to say much about what drives that relationship. In this subsection, we attempt to evaluate the relationship from an econometric (or “applied statistical”) perspective, and ask the question: “to what extent is the U.S./ EAI economic relationship ‘special’?” Does it form a “natural” economic bloc?9 In other words, is U.S.-EAI economic interaction in the order of what one would expect from countries with the economic characteristics of the United States and ASEAN countries?