Current US employment and business laws are not set up well for remote work at all. Several states say different things about this, and there is probably going to be a reckoning on this subject soon.

I don’t think I should be physically present in the USA just because I transferred money to a USA citizen in exchange for services.

However USA law defines this, I think is wrong. That’s what I’m saying.

The USA is an outlier in many ways. It taxes it’s citizens outside of the country, forces awkward bilateral trade agreements , and is not at all harmonized with work laws of other countries.

An office is a physical presence to me. A single person working from their own house is not.