Thanks for the help Dhruv!
Making a full static build is currently really not easy and as you noted it requires the plugin folders as well for plugInfo.json / autogenerated schemas and other stuff.
I guess there could be value in having some flag in build_usd.py to link everything statically (zero-deps all-included) and having plugins info statically embedded/linked at compile-time somehow as you suggested here How to build usd to allow for static linking - #6 by dhruvgovil