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EU and Japan create world's biggest free trade zone

604 points by Nux 8y ago

tonyedgecombe 8y ago
I'm glad the UK is a member of the EU so we can benefit from this.
- growlist 8y ago
  So then it IS apparently possible to have a free trade zone without freedom of movement.
  - pavlov 8y ago
    Of course it is. The EU isn’t that, though. The withdrawal agreement negotiated by May does fulfill those criteria, but Brexiters still don’t like it — fancy that.
    - blibble 8y ago
      let's be accurate here: the reason the brexiteers (i.e. the ERG) don't like the withdrawal agreement is that it gives the EU effective control of the UK economy without any mechanism for the UK to leave that arrangement without the EU's permission which is the sort of term a victor of war forces on a defeated party the ERG agreed earlier this week that if this part of the agreement is dropped they will vote for it, otherwise it will never be accepted
      - kingkawn 8y ago
        Except the U.K. was an equal member of the EU and participated in the development of its rules
        AnaniasAnanas 8y ago
        More than equal as far as I know.
      - jmanderley 8y ago
        Tough luck, the UK gave up its voice in the EU willingly. No one forced Brexit on you.
        arethuza 8y ago
        Perhaps worth reminding everyone that a lot of people in the UK (probably the majority by this point) are actually pro EU.
        isostatic 8y ago
        And more people in the US voted for Clinton than Trump, yet here we are.
        smcl 8y ago
        Well Brexit kind of is being forced upon the people Scotland and Northern Ireland who voted to remain (and, as Arethuza correctly noted, it's now likely that a majority of the UK population overall are against it anyway).
        asnrk 8y ago
        That the narrow result of a single vote is seen as sufficient justification to wildly swing a government's policy in a new direction with huge effects over decades is... baffling to me. Watching it happen is like seeing something announced by someone pretending to be a US President in a Saturday Night Live sketch and then, the next day, everyone treating it like a real thing that had happened and the whole state's policy shifting to reflect those statements, and no-one acting like that's extremely weird and insane.
        smcl 8y ago
        You’ve put my feeling into words far better than I could have
        dalore 8y ago
        Actually it kind of is. The majority don't want it. People got tricked into voting for it (heck no one knew what they were voting for). A slim majority hold everyone hostage by saying will of the people, everyone who voted knew they were voting for no deal. Lot's of deception and big money on the leave side with possible Russian troll bots trolling away on facebook riling up English pride etc. A major change like that should not have been decided by a slim majority. Normally changes in parliament that are big require some super majority. It was a dubious narrow win, and according to polls the old people who voted leave are dead and it's a clear majority to remain. You got a small group of hardliners in the majority government holding them hostage. The government who lost most of their seats in the vote after the referendum (kind of showing that people didn't really want it) but only held on due to a sneaky pairing up with a small Irish party called the DUP. No one wants the deal offered, no one (but a few hardliners) wants no deal. Most want to remain but it's being forced on us because "will of the people". It's madness.
      - Tomte 8y ago
        Well, it's the UK's obligation to preserve the Good Friday Agreement. You can't blame the EU for that obligation. I'm pretty sure that fifteen years ago, nobody would have thought that "let's keep the bombings" would be a coherent and respectable opinion. Things have changed.
        blibble 8y ago
        this is a constant talking point amongst politicians trying to push a narrative without having read the treaty if you'd take the time to read the good friday agreement you'd realise there's nothing about customs controls or a border anywhere in it
        Silhouette 8y ago
        Well, it's the UK's obligation to preserve the Good Friday Agreement. The legal technicalities of that are debatable, but let's assume for this discussion that there exists a clear legal obligation to do so. Which specific obligation(s) under the GFA do you think would or would not be satisfied by which specific proposal(s) that have been made in relation to the NI/Ireland border?
        barrkel 8y ago
        We're not talking about law; we're talking about hearts and minds, identity, nationalism, the stuff that causes wars and keeps peace.
        Silhouette 8y ago
        The same question applies either way: Which specific obligation(s) under the GFA do you think would or would not be satisfied by which specific proposal(s) that have been made in relation to the NI/Ireland border? A lot of rather non-specific claims seem to get made in debates around Brexit, of the form "someone must do something to avoid violating the GFA", but without any supporting argument about why. The Agreement is publicly available and not a long document, so anyone can read it. I think it would further useful and interesting debate if more people did, because it doesn't actually say what quite a lot of people seem to think it does.
      - mpweiher 8y ago
        Actually: no. Not even close. 1) The backstop is just that: a backstop. It applies only if and as long as the "frictionless" arrangements for the NI border, which everyone wants and everyone has very publicly said they want, doesn't happen. So as soon as that happens, no more backstop. 2) UKGov claimed that this frictionless trade technology/mechanism exists and can be made to work, but in the months (or years) couldn't actually come up with a single bit of evidence that this is actually so. So the EU said, hey, we believe you can come up with this, and we will do our best, but in the meantime we have to have some sort of guarantee in place for the off-chance that it doesn't work. So now parts of UKGov and the press are screaming bloody murder that the backstop will keep the UK in shackles "forever". Huh? You told us that you have this way of making the border frictionless. If that's actually true, why is the backstop a problem? So were you lying to us? 3) The only requirement is for the frictionless arrangements/backstop to apply to Northern Ireland, in order not to endanger the Good Friday Agreement, which, incidentally, is a binding agreement voluntarily entered into by the UK (so effectively part of the UK constitution). Extending this to the whole of the UK was something UKGov demanded.
        Reason077 8y ago
        "UKGov claimed that this frictionless trade technology/mechanism exists and can be made to work, but in the months (or years) couldn't actually come up with a single bit of evidence that this is actually so." The Norway-Sweden border would be one example. Just like Ireland-Northern Ireland, they are not in a customs union but allow free movement of people.
        Tomte 8y ago
        You need to distinguish freedom of movement (people) and a customs agreement (goods). Sweden and Norway are both Schengen members, so they have explicitly agreed on freedom of movement for people. That does not say anything about goods. But I don't know why such an arrangement could not work with the UK (both the UK and Norway are members of the European Economic Area) – presumably because the UK wants to leave that as well, because they want to go it alone and not align their trade policies with the European partners?
      - barrkel 8y ago
        There are people who identify as Irish and hold Irish passports who live in Northern Ireland and would be cut off from the Republic without the backstop. It's precisely the making of national identity a non-distinguishing factor that underlies the peace process. The backstop is publicly popular in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland voted by a substantial majority to Remain. The DUP is the only party that voted against the peace agreement. It was the UK who wanted the backstop to be extended to Great Britain, not the EU.
        oaiey 8y ago
        I am so confused why a nuclear power is so worried about a line in a contract. Breaching a contract always happens and as long as something good comes out of it no one cares. AND everyone wants to have a good outcome here. No one wants an explosive Northern Ireland again.
        AndrewDucker 8y ago
        Are you suggesting that the UK makes the EU trade with it by threatening to nuke it if it doesn't? Because that's horrifying, and I can't see how else to read your comment.
        oaiey 8y ago
        No not at all. They negotiate like two normal entities. But I think it is funny to have a nuclear power being scared about a line in a contract it signs. It can just declare: I ignore that line and then wait what the other side will do. The worst case is that the EU is also breaking the contract - maybe completely - which is then ... the same as no-deal.
        barrkel 8y ago
        I don't really see what relevance nuclear weapons have on trade agreements. Trade is an iterated cooperation game. Nuclear weapons have no second turn.
        8y ago
      - notahacker 8y ago
        If you're going to open a post with "let's be accurate here" then it helps to post something which is remotely close to the truth. The withdrawal agreement ensures that the UK will leave the EU entirely within a fixed period with the exception of a tiny, economically isolated region which actually voted to remain, which would continue to be subject to some Single Market rules (to its immense economic benefit) under a temporary provision unless and until it was replaced by a subsequent agreement or an arbitration committee was persuaded that the UK had devised a customs regime which didn't conflict with the UK's separate legal obligations to uphold the GFA and WTO trading rules. Which is the sort of term that people claiming to want to launch a new era of trade agreements with the whole world and claiming that the Irish border could be adequately solved with technology wouldn't be particularly bothered by if they believed what they were saying. (Irish Unionists have more obvious reasons to oppose the deal due to the symbolic importance of an Irish Sea border and their own interpretations of the GFA)
        chimeracoder 8y ago
        > Irish Unionists have more obvious reasons to oppose the deal due to the symbolic importance of an Irish Sea border and their own interpretations of the GFA I'm not super caught up on the deal and the various takes. What is this referring to and what interpretation of the Good Friday Agreement is unfavorable to the deal?
        notahacker 8y ago
        The thrust of the GFA is that changes to the constitutional status of NI and other devolved decisions should be agreed between representatives of the respective unionist and republican communities (or in the case of NI choosing to leave the UK, by referendum). A customs border down the Irish Sea might not pose as many practical problems as a land border but is a pretty dramatic change in the constitutional status of Northern Ireland which unionists who consider NI to be an integral part of the UK naturally oppose. (the DUP don't talk up the GFA angle, not least because they actually originally opposed the GFA and aren't exactly upholding the spirit of it themselves, but there's a legitimate argument that the spirit of the agreement was also intended to protect unionists from having major constitutional changes imposed upon them without their consent or a public vote)
    - nicoburns 8y ago
      nobody likes the withdrawal agreement.
  - ousta 8y ago
    Yes ofc it is possible. the freedom of movement is just a way to dump bluecollar workforce into richer economies so that wages don't go up. educated workforce most of the time has legal ways to get a visa and has freedom of movement regardless of europe "freedom of movement"
    - jashmatthews 8y ago
      Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands were all fairly evenly developed when they formed the original EEC in 1957.
      - edhelas 8y ago
        Is that really true? Are we still fairly evenly developed and having the same economy now?
        close04 8y ago
        Same, no. But in a reasonable reference frame, "evenly developed", probably. I think the point made is that obviously the whole "freedom of movement" concept didn't come as a trick to "dump bluecollar workforce into richer economies so that wages don't go up". Even assuming this was the sole purpose of it today (an extremely ignorant opinion if you ask me, and one that I don't see being backed by OP with evidence) it still doesn't prove that that's what "freedom of movement" is for. At best it would show that that's what it became. It's more or less like saying that cars are for polluting the environment. They may or may not pollute but certainly that's not their defining trait, rather just a side-effect. Unfortunately much of the population commenting here was born in a "freedom of movement" environment as such they have very little personal experience with its benefits for anyone. They did however read an article in the Sun once.
  - NLips 8y ago
    See here for a brief description and comparison of: - the EU single market - an EU customs union - a free trade area https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36083664 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36083664
  - afrisch 8y ago
    Of course. As a matter of fact, UK was never part of the Schengen Area.
    - skrause 8y ago
      Freedom of movement and Schengen Area are not the same thing.
    - tomp 8y ago
      It still benefitted from freedom of movement (which is defined as the ability to live, work and study abroad, and lack of discrimination between EU citizens and locals).
      - growlist 8y ago
        'benefitted'
        ionised 8y ago
        Yes, the UK benefitted greatly from the massive net positive contribtuions that immigration had on its economy.
        smcl 8y ago
        I mean when you look at it purely from a "are we all demonstrably better off in the EU" perspective then sure the UK has benefitted from membership. If however you look at it from the point of view of "I hate people who look or speak different" the it's a different and frankly more miserable situation. I think the person you were replying to was of the latter persuasion.
        growlist 8y ago
        The lazy racism smear.
        growlist 8y ago
  - entity345 8y ago
    No-one ever claimed otherwise. The EU is not a "free trade zone".
  - matt4077 8y ago
    Nobody ever said it wasn’t. See the famous Barnier Diagram from the very start of negotiations: https://goo.gl/images/AqyD7w https://goo.gl/images/AqyD7w Note the Canadian flag on the far right (pun imtended). It was one of the options on offer.
    - repolfx 8y ago
      No, it wasn't. The EU is not insisting that parts of Canada obey EU law automatically and are effectively different countries as a result, which is what it's currently demanding of the UK. Nor did the EU demand tends of billions of euros from Canada in return for nothing in particular. The EU has actually never been willing to discuss trade deals with the UK, let alone "let's be like Canada". So far it's refused entirely to even start such discussions. Barnier says a lot of things, as do others involved in the EU, but those things aren't consistent.
      - matt4077 8y ago
        The billions are not arbitrary, but to settle obligations arising from the UKs past membership, such as pensions for their EU personell. You obviously know that and are pretending to be ignorant, considering it was all over the news at the times.
        jayalpha 8y ago
        "The billions are not arbitrary, but to settle obligations arising from the UKs past membership, such as pensions for their EU personell." No UK monkey was ever able to understand this. "Just walking away will make this obligations disappear". And "paying them is the fee that we get all the EU rights with no obligations".
        repolfx 8y ago
        No, there are no such obligations at all. Every lawyer who has looked at this reached the same conclusion. The treaties are very clear. Two years after invoking Article 50 all rights and obligations terminate. Pensions are obligations of the EU itself, not the UK. The fact that the EU has failed to invest properly into a pension fund and is structuring its pensions as a ponzi scheme is not the problem of former members.
  - nnq 8y ago
    ...but why would anyone ever want that?! If people are able to move freely, then each country should be able to apply tariffs to extract benefits from the economic gradients. If people can move freely, then that's the ideal. Institutions, governments, "nations" and companies that collapse because of the free movement of people deserve to collapse and should be left to due so. The should even be "helped" to collapse faster and harder, making sure they never rise again!
    - nnq 8y ago
      Edit typo 2nd para: "If people are NOT able to..."
- Proven 8y ago
  Perhaps you should instead be wondering how much earlier you could have benefitted from this if the UK wasn't tied to a bureaucratic, lethargic customs union that restricts free trade.
- martin_a 8y ago
  Not sure if sarcastic or not. Nowadays everything is possible. :-)
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- Silhouette 8y ago
  Both the Japanese and UK official positions are that in the event of Brexit severing these new ties via the EU, they want to implement a bilateral deal as quickly as possible that covers the same benefits as the EPA with possibilities for going further. Obviously various parties involved would prefer a more orderly transition, though. One somewhat ironic possible outcome if there is a hard Brexit is that the UK could subsequently form a relationship with the CPTPP group that is broadly similar in nature to the new Japan-EU agreement.
  - mpweiher 8y ago
    Except the argument made by the Brexiteers is that the EU can't do trade deals and Britain would be able to do so much better and quicker outside. Hmm...
    - Silhouette 8y ago
      Sorry, I'm not very interested in debating subjective views of what more than 17 million people might have wanted. Little of value ever seems to result from such discussions. All I'm saying is that the original comment by tonyedgecomb seems a bit pessimistic, because whatever happens with Brexit, either the UK will retain the benefits of the new EU arrangement or the UK and Japan have declared a very public intention to form an analogous agreement as quickly as possible to retain the same benefits for both parties.
  - nicoburns 8y ago
    If that did occur, wouldn't that allow the UK and the EU to trade freely via Japan...?
    - Silhouette 8y ago
      Not necessarily, because there could (almost almost certainly would) be rules of origin involved. These trade deals reduce or eliminate trade barriers to a useful degree, but they aren't as all-encompassing as full membership of the EU.
- pastor_elm 8y ago
  Benefits of free-trade? You mean like a devastated blue collar class? Keep British products manufactured in Britain.
  - astannard 8y ago
    They were being ironic as we wont be in the zone in a few weeks
  - tonyedgecombe 8y ago
    Manufacturing has mostly moved to China, not the EU.
    - Xixi 8y ago
      A lot of manufacturing has moved to Eastern Europe, especially car manufacturing. Ironically, UK was a strong advocate of the EU enlargement...
  - oblio 8y ago
    Didn't Britain de-industrialize of its own volition, in the 60s/70s/80s? :)
    - blattimwind 8y ago
      I've honestly only seen/owned at best a handful of products made in the UK. (I look at the country of origin of almost everything I buy, and I generally prefer EU-made things over Chinese-made things). Things that come to mind: - Lorlin switches, and there is (probably "used to be") a Möller plant in the UK. - A hammer made by Thorex. Good concept, poor quality. - A saw made by Thomas Flinn. Poor steel. - Fountain pen ink. - Well that was a short list. Perhaps some English books I have were printed in UK. Though probably not.
      - growlist 8y ago
        There's an industrial estate almost literally a stones throw from my window (here in the UK) that makes all kinds of things, especially Aero related.
- porpoisely 8y ago
  EU has to allow the UK to leave first before the UK and Japan can negotiate a free trade agreement. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/26/an-seeks-early-free-trade-talks-with-uk-amid-brexit-fears-shinzo-abe https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/26/an-seeks-early...
  - isostatic 8y ago
    The EU doesn't have to allow the UK to leave, the UK has to decide to leave, the EU has nothing to do with it. The trouble is if the UK leaves, it loses all the benefits of being in the EU.
Tomte 8y ago
"The service market will be opened, including financial services" This is going to make the UK mad. But apart from that, wasn't there the position that services cannot be part of a trade deal?
- danmaz74 8y ago
  What to open is decided in a case-by-case basis. When opening one sector is more favorable for one of the two parties, the other one is going to ask something in return...
- notahacker 8y ago
  There's the EU position that full and equal access to the services market is dependent on also allowing free movement of people, and the fairly standard EU position that foreign companies' access to its services market must depend on them following standards harmonised with EU law. The former is a sticking point for the UK achieving the same level of services access before, the latter an impediment to a UK government ratifying many other plausible trade agreements that would oblige the UK to mirror various EU corporate regulations, restrictions on state aid for some of its larger companies etc without being accused of "betraying Brexit" and "taking orders from Brussels". Also beyond the formally stated positions, the EU has to consider whether not opening up certain areas of its services sector to UK competition might be beneficial or harmful to its Member States, and it might take the view that not allowing London to retain dominance in various financial services and insurance markets would be a very good thing for some European financial centres.
  - repolfx 8y ago
    There isn't really much services market in the EU, the "common market" only ever really worked properly for goods. This is one reason the UK doesn't like it much - it's got a more services oriented economy than the other countries, but the EU doesn't care much to open up e.g. German service industries to British competition. Meanwhile the EU only requires free movement of people for trade deals for geographically European countries, because those are the ones it feels it should be able to fully absorb, whereas it has no interest in trying to take over Canada or Japan. So whilst the UK is told to pay billions, accept unlimited immigration and obey the ECJ if it wants a trade deal of any sort whatsoever, Japan is required to do none of those things. Ultimately this makes the EU a much worse deal if you happen to live near it than further away. Also the Commission has made clear that the financial services market in the EU will be entirely closed to the EU no matter what happens, even if some deal is reached. Not tariffs, outright bans. There's no "sticking point" about it - the EU sees loss of access to financial markets as the penalty for any attempt to leave at all, or even just not join. See how Switzerland is also being banned from EU financial markets it previously had access to because of unrelated trade disputes.
_bxg1 8y ago
Finally a piece of good news in global politics
- afrisch 8y ago
  The best part is that tree trade is not contradictory with setting standards! > For the first time, the trade agreement includes countries' Paris climate deal commitments. > The text also addresses sustainable development and sets standards for labor, safety, environmental and consumer protection.
  - _bxg1 8y ago
    For sure. These days it seems like Canada and mainland Europe are the last bastions of civilization.
    - ApolloFortyNine 8y ago
      This sounds like a bit of a hyperbole no?
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  "Finally a piece of good news in global politics" The Americans representing untold numbers of businesses attempts to fairly access Chinese markets without having their IP grabbed and given to a local competitors is much bigger 'good news' than this deal. Businesses large and small around the world have had to put up with this and never say anything publicly about it. The trade negotiations between US and China are long, long overdue, and countless respected individuals are backing it. Quite a number of times on FT podcasts I've heard 'I can't say that I'm a Trump supporter, but addressing these issues is welcome' kind of thing. Even the Democrats are essentially supporting Trump on this [1], which is why there's little political fuss about this in daily news. It looks like some kind of deal will be made, and it will be 'very material' and probably beneficial for both the US and China, but also everyone else. The EU-Japan deal is good, but they are advanced nations without tons of trade. A big deal between the US/EU and the rest of Asia and also South America would be a really nice thing if it had the right terms. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-elections-trade/democrat-led-house-seen-backing-trumps-china-trade-war-scrutinizing-talks-with-allies-idUSKCN1ND1HU https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-elections-trade/democ...
tozeur 8y ago
Are there any downsides to this that were perhaps left out of the article?
- martin_a 8y ago
  Well, if you are not a member state of the EU or Japan it will be harder to sell your products, if EU or Japan can import them cheaper from their partners. But next to that: Probably not.
- rjtavares 8y ago
  The downside of free trade agreements is well studied: while overall it's a net positive for the economies involved, there are some individual losers.
  - tomp 8y ago
    I think the parent means things like, draconian copyright rules, ISDS (investor-state dispute settlement), subversion of customer protection rules (e.g. selling GMO meat in EU), etc. In addition, Japan and EU are obviously similarly (very highly) developed countries, so "free trade" between them is very close to "fair trade" as well, as opposed to e.g. free trade between EU and China would be (EU companies would skirt EU labour and environmental laws by producing stuff in China and freely importing into the EU).
    - nradov 8y ago
      Banning GMO meat doesn't protect consumers. It's just unscientific pandering to special interest groups.
      - ionised 8y ago
        Banning hormone-treated beef and chlorine washed chicken would protect customers from shitty food though.
        8y ago
edhelas 8y ago
Is this a good thing in the end? Ecologically, hurting small economies (already happen in the eurozone)…
- matt4077 8y ago
  Yeah, I hear the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, and Estonia are hurting terribly.
  - growlist 8y ago
    But then there are also plenty of small and small-ish economies that haven't done so well from EU (particularly Euro) membership, aren't there?
    - IfOnlyYouKnew 8y ago
      Nope. Ireland has done excellent-it was the poorest country in Europe when they joined in the 1970s, today it’s among the top. Eastern and south-eastern countries had lines for bread when the USSR dissolved. Ten years later, they joined the EU. Today, life in Poland or Hungary is close to catching up with Western Europe. Greece had about the same GDP per capita as Turkey when they joined. Today, it’s closer to 3x Turkey.
      - rfinney 8y ago
        Check. "Ireland [...] was the poorest country in Europe" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_past_and_projected_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita#World_Bank_estimates_between_1970_and_1979 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_past_and_... Check 1972 figures. Spain and Greece were poorer. The unlisted Soviet client states were likely even much poorer. "Poland or Hungary is close to catching up with Western Europe." Poland and Hungary have 1/3 the per capita GDP as Britain. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28no... ) "Greece had about the same GDP per capita as Turkey when they joined. Today, it’s closer to 3x Turkey." ( see previous link). 2017: Greek per capita gdp =~ $18.6K, Turkey =~ $11.5K. Also (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_past_and_projected_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita#IMF_estimates_between_1980_and_1989 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_past_and_... ). Greece joined in 1981: Greece gdp per capita ~= $5.3K, turkey gdp =~$2.2K.
Tohsh7po 8y ago
Will consumers benefit from it? Can Japanese order from amazon.de without customs charges and vice versa?
- Tepix 8y ago
  amazon.com is US based. This free trade zone is between the EU and Japan.
  - Tohsh7po 8y ago
    I have not mentioned .com. There are german and japanese amazon branches
  - chrisper 8y ago
    Amazon.de is a different company than amazon.com (by law at least)
- pastor_elm 8y ago
  What would the Japanese need from the EU besides Airbus planes. Looks like a one-way street to me.
  - seren 8y ago
    Not sure if you read the original article, but the exchange between Europe and Japan seems fairly balanced. > EU businesses export €58 billion in goods and €28 billion in services to Japan every year. (snip) Japan exports €69 billion in goods and €18 billion in services to the EU annually.
  - Tomte 8y ago
    Food. The EU is an agricultural juggernaut, and Japan has very dense megacities with mountain ranges in between. Not the best situation for self-sufficiency. Fortunately, they make highly sought-after electronic products and cars, which can be exchanged for food.
    - 8y ago
dmix 8y ago
Canada recently made a trade deal with the EU as well. Our country (Canada) hasn't been pushing harder enough for this IMO, considering how greatly we benefitted from NAFTA it should have been our top policy objective for the last couple decades. Modern countries would rather get lost in decades long mega-deals with 1000 conditions for every political crony connection / special-interest group ever than get an actual real "free trade" deal done. There are still so many things that are ridiculously expensive in Canada for no rational (long term) benefit to either party assuming it was a real market. When you could drive an hour south to the US and get countless things for 25% cheaper (clothes, shoes, cars, etc) not to mention the lack of access to media (streaming sites) and sports blackout contracts.
- annapurna 8y ago
  >There are still so many things that are ridiculously expensive in Canada for no rational (long term) benefit to either party assuming it was a real market. I cannot find the link but no surprises when there was a report (from one of the EU organizations) that we pay the highest cell phone fees.
  - dmix 8y ago
    The high cellphone + ISP fees in Canada are a result of the monopoly the ~2-3 telecom companies were given by government a few decades back to "accelerate" broadband and mobile infrastructure development. The only positive tradeoff we've gotten out of decades of paying 25-50% more per month than most countries is that our networks have been cutting edge. We got 3g, 4g, etc before almost everyone. But I don't attribute this to the gov, their investment was long ago, but rather the competence of executives being smart enough to maintain their monopoly without falling into the trap of falling behind as many monopolies do before being trumped by economic progress/tech (ie, see the taxi monopoly lack of tech investment before Uber/Lyft), and via the massive margins they get out of their monopoly pricing providing plenty of capital investment to prevent any sort of competition.
    - matt4077 8y ago
      I doubt there are many countries with more than two or three competing networks. There may be a few more resellers, or even several dozens. But it’s just uneconomical to build the hardware five times over. In any case, a FTA is not going to change it.
TorKlingberg 8y ago
Japan has avoided the madness of tariffs and trade wars that has affected the west recently. Instead they have been quietly negotiating trade deals with everyone and generally getting along. Good on them! Also it includes cheese, which will make westerners in Japan very happy.
- titanix2 8y ago
  > Also it includes cheese, which will make westerners in Japan very happy. Now that's effectively a big news worth sharing!
- hkmurakami 8y ago
  I still remember how horridly expensive cheese was in Japan. This is excellent news.
  - siruncledrew 8y ago
    That's pretty interesting, is it expensive for all types of cheese from like kraft singles to french brie? Do you have any other stories of common EU/US items that are rare in Japan?
    - stevekemp 8y ago
      I might be being a bit of a snob, but in the context of a cheese-related discussion kraft singles don't really rate mention.
      - oh_sigh 8y ago
        Are you even allowed to call them cheese? I thought they had to be labeled as a processed milk product or something.
        gruez 8y ago
        They’re called “process cheese product”
zeristor 8y ago
So does Britain get enjoy this for the two months before Brexicution?
- isostatic 8y ago
  yes Come March 31st the UK has no trade deals with any country. Even the WTO schedules are up for argument in the unelected WTO court.
  - Filligree 8y ago
    The WTO court which is very nearly defunct thanks to Trump. Ooh, this'll be fun.
  - reubeniv 8y ago
    That's not strictly true, I know a few countries have agreed to roll over the deals the have with the EU over to the UK, not all have been signed and (not a great comfort) the only ones I know of that have (so far) are Isreal and (I think?) Australia
    - isostatic 8y ago
      Australia doesn't have a trade deal with the EU, they've said that the UK leaving will not change their desire for one Israel you're right -- they agreed it last week.
      - reubeniv 8y ago
        Not strictly true again, it's not a FTA but there exists a trade deal in some form and the UK just signed with Australia - https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-and-australia-agree-continuity-of-mutual-recognition-agreement https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-and-australia-agree-co...
        isostatic 8y ago
        That's not really a trade deal (well it's not listed on the page with the free trade agreements the UK has [0], nor on the list of preferential trade deals the UK has [1]) While the spin is "we're doing business", all this does is "continue to benefit from existing arrangements for mutual recognition" Given that those benefits are so insignificant they don't appear as free trade agreements says it all really. It's to do with certification (not tarrifs) in a few areas (Automotive Products, Pressure Equipment, Medical Devices etc) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_free_trade_agreements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_free_trade_agre... [1] https://fullfact.org/europe/how-many-free-trade-deals-has-eu-done/ https://fullfact.org/europe/how-many-free-trade-deals-has-eu...
hippich 8y ago
While lack of tariffs is nice, as a small-time seller, complying with all these VAT, taxing rules (Germany added new requirement in 2019 to obtain some kind of new tax certificate which is not related to VAT certificate) makes it quite complicated from compliance point alone. But I guess it represents general attitude towards business in europe. Not sure how it is like in Japan. [edit] What I mean is that it is all fine if you can justify hiring a consulting service or actually establish an office there. But if you are too small for that - local rules makes it quite hard to sell in this market. So while free-trade indeed a positive, it is positive only for larger sellers.
- babuskov 8y ago
  > Germany added new requirement in 2019 to obtain some kind of new tax certificate Is it the tax residence one? We have had it in my country since 2017 and it has been a major PITA when working with smaller partners from US/Canada.
  - hippich 8y ago
    I did not actually research it in depth, just posted what Amazon provided to all sellers. My plan is to quickly dispose of existing stock and quit these markets, as my sales do not justify trying to comply with local rules. To be fair, if USA states would start enforcing sales tax collection on foreign sellers - it would be the same story. But for now at the very least states go mostly after out of state sellers, not foreign ones. [EDIT] relevant discussion - https://sellercentral-europe.amazon.com/forums/t/anyone-registered-for-the-new-german-tax-certificate-now-in-jan-2019/183554?page=14 https://sellercentral-europe.amazon.com/forums/t/anyone-regi... Another one catching up - https://sellercentral.amazon.co.uk/forums/t/getting-ready-for-the-german-packaging-law-starts-1st-jan-2019/181112/20 https://sellercentral.amazon.co.uk/forums/t/getting-ready-fo...
- fauigerzigerk 8y ago
  That's true. But there is some progress on that as well. From Jan 2019, the so called VAT MOSS (mini one stop shop) is open to companies from outside the EU as well: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-changes-to-the-supply-of-digital-services-2019/vat-changes-to-the-supply-of-digital-services-2019 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-changes-to-th... I don't know how it works exactly, but it means that you can now supply digital goods and services to all EU countries after getting registered with the VAT MOSS instead of registering for VAT in every single EU country. Also, for very small suppliers there is now a €10,000 (p.a) threshold (total sales into the EU) below which you don't have to charge VAT at all.
max76 8y ago
"For the first time, the trade agreement includes countries' Paris climate deal commitments." This is a brilliant answer to the tragedy of the commons. Often times people ask why they should make great efforts to be more environmentally friendly when other groups are not. This creates multiparty incentives attached to real economic benefits to keep their word on climate change. I hope The US, China, and Russia all enter economic agreements with similar clauses. EDIT: I didn't mean to single out those three countries. All countries should include these clauses in their economic agreements. India, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Canada are top ten polluters that are not covered in this specific agreement or mentioned by me above.
- roywiggins 8y ago
  The TPP would have folded in a bunch of environmental protection rules, but the US blew it up. It's debatable how good these protections would have been, but they were not nothing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership#Environmental_protection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership#Envi...
  - cyphar 8y ago
    The TPP had many other issues though. Examples include criminal penalties for breaking DRM or disclosing trade secrets, and establishing an international tribunal that allows corporations to sue for monetary damages from a government that passes a law which they feel is discriminatory. (I know the US has trade agreements like this already, but it's a new thing for Australia -- and unfortunately we are now part of the new US-exempt TPP.)
    - dragontamer 8y ago
      The point of that was to stop Malaysia and Singapore from pirating movies and software. I think there's something to be said about the correct distrust of MPAA. But at the same time, Malaysia and Singapore were clear pirate hubs that were harmful to any IP based economy.
exhaze 8y ago
This was news a few months, wonder why it's just now hitting HN. FYI, many import tariffs on products like cheese and meats are not immediately effectively - they gradually phase out the tariffs over a period of something like 8-10 years, so cheese will continue to be expensive for quite a while.
- roywiggins 8y ago
  It just entered into force today, that's why it's in the news. http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-19-785_en.htm http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-19-785_en.htm
- PurpleRamen 8y ago
  The contracts takes effect from today on. Months ago they just signed it, but it wasn't executed till now. Needs some time to prepare for such things.
DanielleMolloy 8y ago
Is this meaningful for the average customer? I'd like to import two Switch games to the EU from Japan soon (eBay or PlayAsia). Will the agreement mean that there are no potential customs for me anymore?
- vinay427 8y ago
  I believe they have to be made in Japan, unless this is an actual customs union which is unlikely. Essentially, if a product is imported from a country A into country B, which has an FTA with country C, it cannot be imported (under the agreement) into country C unless country C has an FTA with country A or countries B and C have some sort of customs union. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-36083664 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-36083664
ThomPete 8y ago
Lowering tarifs in general are good but my bet is that this is not really going to mean that much. This is only good for big corporations. For the rest it's bureaucrazy (pun intended) and frankly won't have that big of an impact no matter how big it is. Neither the EU nor the Japan are able to drive the market in any significant way. So it's great for Siemens but won't really matter to the little startup.
- matt4077 8y ago
  How is it beaurocracy to go from tariffs to no tariffs? Other than that, your cynicism is bland and boring. Why would consumers not reap at least some benefits from tariffs for cheese falling Faron 40% to zero. It’s not like there’s a big moat around the idea of shipping cheese from France to japan and selling it that would allow some monopolist to capture that difference.
  - ThomPete 8y ago
    For the small companies because of compliance they can rarely afford.
zeroname 8y ago
Tariffs worth a billion, what a joke. EU tariffs were already low for the most part. The real trade barriers that the EU imposes are its regulations that are favoring local business. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/2453204/Bent-banana-and-curved-cucumber-rules-dropped-by-EU.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/2453204/Be...
amalrik_maia 8y ago
This is not free trade. Who is John Galt?
anigbrowl 8y ago
Why does it only provide for free movement of capital and goods but not of people?
- aboutruby 8y ago
  Japan has an anti-immigration policy as far as I know. Seems like it's actually slowly getting better because of the increasing elderly population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Japan
- azernik 8y ago
  Because the free movement of capital and goods is much more limited than that of EU or EEA members.
- lispm 8y ago
  because it's just a 'free trade agreement' and Japan is not asking for membership in the EU (or EEA)
  - anigbrowl 8y ago
    Labour is tradeable. You should be able to sell your labour with the same freedom others have to sell their goods.
    - lispm 8y ago
      you can trade your labor. Freedom of movement for people in the EU is something different. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/en/sheet/147/free-movement-of-persons http://www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/en/sheet/147/free-m... https://www.bmi.bund.de/EN/topics/migration/law-on-foreigners/freedom-of-movement/freedom-of-movement-node.html https://www.bmi.bund.de/EN/topics/migration/law-on-foreigner... Since Japan is not joining the EU and also not planning to do so, 'Freedom of movement' in the EU is not part of this (trade) agreement.
ucaetano 8y ago
And the UK will miss out.
EGreg 8y ago
UK comes out Japan comes in
- lispm 8y ago
  Not really. With a free trade agreement Japan is not a member of the EU. Far from it. The UK after Brexit eventually will also get a 'free trade agreement' of some sorts with the EU.
  - EGreg 8y ago
    UK comes out Scotland comes in :) https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/oct/07/nicola-sturgeon-snp-undoubtedly-back-peoples-vote-brexit https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/oct/07/nicola-stur...
    - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
      Then half of the NW and NE try to secede to join Scotland. :)
emptyfile 8y ago
"The deal protects 'Geographical Indications' such as Cheddar, Kobe beef and Scotch whiskey" Ironic
Animats 8y ago
Does Britain get kicked out of this deal after Brexit? Probably.
- satysin 8y ago
  Yes.
  - jayalpha 8y ago
    No. They are kicking themselves out.
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ToFab123 8y ago
This is so awesome news. I see that in the local news this morning, that in my home country (Denmark), this free trade agreement is creating lots of news jobs with companies already announcing hundreds of new job. And this is just one day after the announcement. More of this to come in the next days and weeks.
- jayalpha 8y ago
  Would you mind elaborating?
intake 8y ago
Time to buy a Toyota car

604 points by Nux 8y ago

tonyedgecombe 8y ago

I'm glad the UK is a member of the EU so we can benefit from this.

growlist 8y ago
So then it IS apparently possible to have a free trade zone without freedom of movement.
- pavlov 8y ago
  Of course it is. The EU isn’t that, though. The withdrawal agreement negotiated by May does fulfill those criteria, but Brexiters still don’t like it — fancy that.
  - blibble 8y ago
    let's be accurate here: the reason the brexiteers (i.e. the ERG) don't like the withdrawal agreement is that it gives the EU effective control of the UK economy without any mechanism for the UK to leave that arrangement without the EU's permission which is the sort of term a victor of war forces on a defeated party the ERG agreed earlier this week that if this part of the agreement is dropped they will vote for it, otherwise it will never be accepted
    - kingkawn 8y ago
      Except the U.K. was an equal member of the EU and participated in the development of its rules
      - AnaniasAnanas 8y ago
        More than equal as far as I know.
    - jmanderley 8y ago
      Tough luck, the UK gave up its voice in the EU willingly. No one forced Brexit on you.
      - arethuza 8y ago
        Perhaps worth reminding everyone that a lot of people in the UK (probably the majority by this point) are actually pro EU.
        isostatic 8y ago
        And more people in the US voted for Clinton than Trump, yet here we are.
      - smcl 8y ago
        Well Brexit kind of is being forced upon the people Scotland and Northern Ireland who voted to remain (and, as Arethuza correctly noted, it's now likely that a majority of the UK population overall are against it anyway).
        asnrk 8y ago
        That the narrow result of a single vote is seen as sufficient justification to wildly swing a government's policy in a new direction with huge effects over decades is... baffling to me. Watching it happen is like seeing something announced by someone pretending to be a US President in a Saturday Night Live sketch and then, the next day, everyone treating it like a real thing that had happened and the whole state's policy shifting to reflect those statements, and no-one acting like that's extremely weird and insane.
        smcl 8y ago
        You’ve put my feeling into words far better than I could have
      - dalore 8y ago
        Actually it kind of is. The majority don't want it. People got tricked into voting for it (heck no one knew what they were voting for). A slim majority hold everyone hostage by saying will of the people, everyone who voted knew they were voting for no deal. Lot's of deception and big money on the leave side with possible Russian troll bots trolling away on facebook riling up English pride etc. A major change like that should not have been decided by a slim majority. Normally changes in parliament that are big require some super majority. It was a dubious narrow win, and according to polls the old people who voted leave are dead and it's a clear majority to remain. You got a small group of hardliners in the majority government holding them hostage. The government who lost most of their seats in the vote after the referendum (kind of showing that people didn't really want it) but only held on due to a sneaky pairing up with a small Irish party called the DUP. No one wants the deal offered, no one (but a few hardliners) wants no deal. Most want to remain but it's being forced on us because "will of the people". It's madness.
    - Tomte 8y ago
      Well, it's the UK's obligation to preserve the Good Friday Agreement. You can't blame the EU for that obligation. I'm pretty sure that fifteen years ago, nobody would have thought that "let's keep the bombings" would be a coherent and respectable opinion. Things have changed.
      - blibble 8y ago
        this is a constant talking point amongst politicians trying to push a narrative without having read the treaty if you'd take the time to read the good friday agreement you'd realise there's nothing about customs controls or a border anywhere in it
      - Silhouette 8y ago
        Well, it's the UK's obligation to preserve the Good Friday Agreement. The legal technicalities of that are debatable, but let's assume for this discussion that there exists a clear legal obligation to do so. Which specific obligation(s) under the GFA do you think would or would not be satisfied by which specific proposal(s) that have been made in relation to the NI/Ireland border?
        barrkel 8y ago
        We're not talking about law; we're talking about hearts and minds, identity, nationalism, the stuff that causes wars and keeps peace.
        Silhouette 8y ago
        The same question applies either way: Which specific obligation(s) under the GFA do you think would or would not be satisfied by which specific proposal(s) that have been made in relation to the NI/Ireland border? A lot of rather non-specific claims seem to get made in debates around Brexit, of the form "someone must do something to avoid violating the GFA", but without any supporting argument about why. The Agreement is publicly available and not a long document, so anyone can read it. I think it would further useful and interesting debate if more people did, because it doesn't actually say what quite a lot of people seem to think it does.
    - mpweiher 8y ago
      Actually: no. Not even close. 1) The backstop is just that: a backstop. It applies only if and as long as the "frictionless" arrangements for the NI border, which everyone wants and everyone has very publicly said they want, doesn't happen. So as soon as that happens, no more backstop. 2) UKGov claimed that this frictionless trade technology/mechanism exists and can be made to work, but in the months (or years) couldn't actually come up with a single bit of evidence that this is actually so. So the EU said, hey, we believe you can come up with this, and we will do our best, but in the meantime we have to have some sort of guarantee in place for the off-chance that it doesn't work. So now parts of UKGov and the press are screaming bloody murder that the backstop will keep the UK in shackles "forever". Huh? You told us that you have this way of making the border frictionless. If that's actually true, why is the backstop a problem? So were you lying to us? 3) The only requirement is for the frictionless arrangements/backstop to apply to Northern Ireland, in order not to endanger the Good Friday Agreement, which, incidentally, is a binding agreement voluntarily entered into by the UK (so effectively part of the UK constitution). Extending this to the whole of the UK was something UKGov demanded.
      - Reason077 8y ago
        "UKGov claimed that this frictionless trade technology/mechanism exists and can be made to work, but in the months (or years) couldn't actually come up with a single bit of evidence that this is actually so." The Norway-Sweden border would be one example. Just like Ireland-Northern Ireland, they are not in a customs union but allow free movement of people.
        Tomte 8y ago
        You need to distinguish freedom of movement (people) and a customs agreement (goods). Sweden and Norway are both Schengen members, so they have explicitly agreed on freedom of movement for people. That does not say anything about goods. But I don't know why such an arrangement could not work with the UK (both the UK and Norway are members of the European Economic Area) – presumably because the UK wants to leave that as well, because they want to go it alone and not align their trade policies with the European partners?
    - barrkel 8y ago
      There are people who identify as Irish and hold Irish passports who live in Northern Ireland and would be cut off from the Republic without the backstop. It's precisely the making of national identity a non-distinguishing factor that underlies the peace process. The backstop is publicly popular in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland voted by a substantial majority to Remain. The DUP is the only party that voted against the peace agreement. It was the UK who wanted the backstop to be extended to Great Britain, not the EU.
      - oaiey 8y ago
        I am so confused why a nuclear power is so worried about a line in a contract. Breaching a contract always happens and as long as something good comes out of it no one cares. AND everyone wants to have a good outcome here. No one wants an explosive Northern Ireland again.
        AndrewDucker 8y ago
        Are you suggesting that the UK makes the EU trade with it by threatening to nuke it if it doesn't? Because that's horrifying, and I can't see how else to read your comment.
        oaiey 8y ago
        No not at all. They negotiate like two normal entities. But I think it is funny to have a nuclear power being scared about a line in a contract it signs. It can just declare: I ignore that line and then wait what the other side will do. The worst case is that the EU is also breaking the contract - maybe completely - which is then ... the same as no-deal.
        barrkel 8y ago
        I don't really see what relevance nuclear weapons have on trade agreements. Trade is an iterated cooperation game. Nuclear weapons have no second turn.
        8y ago
    - notahacker 8y ago
      If you're going to open a post with "let's be accurate here" then it helps to post something which is remotely close to the truth. The withdrawal agreement ensures that the UK will leave the EU entirely within a fixed period with the exception of a tiny, economically isolated region which actually voted to remain, which would continue to be subject to some Single Market rules (to its immense economic benefit) under a temporary provision unless and until it was replaced by a subsequent agreement or an arbitration committee was persuaded that the UK had devised a customs regime which didn't conflict with the UK's separate legal obligations to uphold the GFA and WTO trading rules. Which is the sort of term that people claiming to want to launch a new era of trade agreements with the whole world and claiming that the Irish border could be adequately solved with technology wouldn't be particularly bothered by if they believed what they were saying. (Irish Unionists have more obvious reasons to oppose the deal due to the symbolic importance of an Irish Sea border and their own interpretations of the GFA)
      - chimeracoder 8y ago
        > Irish Unionists have more obvious reasons to oppose the deal due to the symbolic importance of an Irish Sea border and their own interpretations of the GFA I'm not super caught up on the deal and the various takes. What is this referring to and what interpretation of the Good Friday Agreement is unfavorable to the deal?
        notahacker 8y ago
        The thrust of the GFA is that changes to the constitutional status of NI and other devolved decisions should be agreed between representatives of the respective unionist and republican communities (or in the case of NI choosing to leave the UK, by referendum). A customs border down the Irish Sea might not pose as many practical problems as a land border but is a pretty dramatic change in the constitutional status of Northern Ireland which unionists who consider NI to be an integral part of the UK naturally oppose. (the DUP don't talk up the GFA angle, not least because they actually originally opposed the GFA and aren't exactly upholding the spirit of it themselves, but there's a legitimate argument that the spirit of the agreement was also intended to protect unionists from having major constitutional changes imposed upon them without their consent or a public vote)
  - nicoburns 8y ago
    nobody likes the withdrawal agreement.
- ousta 8y ago
  Yes ofc it is possible. the freedom of movement is just a way to dump bluecollar workforce into richer economies so that wages don't go up. educated workforce most of the time has legal ways to get a visa and has freedom of movement regardless of europe "freedom of movement"
  - jashmatthews 8y ago
    Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands were all fairly evenly developed when they formed the original EEC in 1957.
    - edhelas 8y ago
      Is that really true? Are we still fairly evenly developed and having the same economy now?
      - close04 8y ago
        Same, no. But in a reasonable reference frame, "evenly developed", probably. I think the point made is that obviously the whole "freedom of movement" concept didn't come as a trick to "dump bluecollar workforce into richer economies so that wages don't go up". Even assuming this was the sole purpose of it today (an extremely ignorant opinion if you ask me, and one that I don't see being backed by OP with evidence) it still doesn't prove that that's what "freedom of movement" is for. At best it would show that that's what it became. It's more or less like saying that cars are for polluting the environment. They may or may not pollute but certainly that's not their defining trait, rather just a side-effect. Unfortunately much of the population commenting here was born in a "freedom of movement" environment as such they have very little personal experience with its benefits for anyone. They did however read an article in the Sun once.
- NLips 8y ago
  See here for a brief description and comparison of: - the EU single market - an EU customs union - a free trade area https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36083664 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36083664
- afrisch 8y ago
  Of course. As a matter of fact, UK was never part of the Schengen Area.
  - skrause 8y ago
    Freedom of movement and Schengen Area are not the same thing.
  - tomp 8y ago
    It still benefitted from freedom of movement (which is defined as the ability to live, work and study abroad, and lack of discrimination between EU citizens and locals).
    - growlist 8y ago
      'benefitted'
      - ionised 8y ago
        Yes, the UK benefitted greatly from the massive net positive contribtuions that immigration had on its economy.
        smcl 8y ago
        I mean when you look at it purely from a "are we all demonstrably better off in the EU" perspective then sure the UK has benefitted from membership. If however you look at it from the point of view of "I hate people who look or speak different" the it's a different and frankly more miserable situation. I think the person you were replying to was of the latter persuasion.
        growlist 8y ago
        The lazy racism smear.
        growlist 8y ago
- entity345 8y ago
  No-one ever claimed otherwise. The EU is not a "free trade zone".
- matt4077 8y ago
  Nobody ever said it wasn’t. See the famous Barnier Diagram from the very start of negotiations: https://goo.gl/images/AqyD7w https://goo.gl/images/AqyD7w Note the Canadian flag on the far right (pun imtended). It was one of the options on offer.
  - repolfx 8y ago
    No, it wasn't. The EU is not insisting that parts of Canada obey EU law automatically and are effectively different countries as a result, which is what it's currently demanding of the UK. Nor did the EU demand tends of billions of euros from Canada in return for nothing in particular. The EU has actually never been willing to discuss trade deals with the UK, let alone "let's be like Canada". So far it's refused entirely to even start such discussions. Barnier says a lot of things, as do others involved in the EU, but those things aren't consistent.
    - matt4077 8y ago
      The billions are not arbitrary, but to settle obligations arising from the UKs past membership, such as pensions for their EU personell. You obviously know that and are pretending to be ignorant, considering it was all over the news at the times.
      - jayalpha 8y ago
        "The billions are not arbitrary, but to settle obligations arising from the UKs past membership, such as pensions for their EU personell." No UK monkey was ever able to understand this. "Just walking away will make this obligations disappear". And "paying them is the fee that we get all the EU rights with no obligations".
      - repolfx 8y ago
        No, there are no such obligations at all. Every lawyer who has looked at this reached the same conclusion. The treaties are very clear. Two years after invoking Article 50 all rights and obligations terminate. Pensions are obligations of the EU itself, not the UK. The fact that the EU has failed to invest properly into a pension fund and is structuring its pensions as a ponzi scheme is not the problem of former members.
- nnq 8y ago
  ...but why would anyone ever want that?! If people are able to move freely, then each country should be able to apply tariffs to extract benefits from the economic gradients. If people can move freely, then that's the ideal. Institutions, governments, "nations" and companies that collapse because of the free movement of people deserve to collapse and should be left to due so. The should even be "helped" to collapse faster and harder, making sure they never rise again!
  - nnq 8y ago
    Edit typo 2nd para: "If people are NOT able to..."
Proven 8y ago
Perhaps you should instead be wondering how much earlier you could have benefitted from this if the UK wasn't tied to a bureaucratic, lethargic customs union that restricts free trade.
martin_a 8y ago
Not sure if sarcastic or not. Nowadays everything is possible. :-)
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
Silhouette 8y ago
Both the Japanese and UK official positions are that in the event of Brexit severing these new ties via the EU, they want to implement a bilateral deal as quickly as possible that covers the same benefits as the EPA with possibilities for going further. Obviously various parties involved would prefer a more orderly transition, though. One somewhat ironic possible outcome if there is a hard Brexit is that the UK could subsequently form a relationship with the CPTPP group that is broadly similar in nature to the new Japan-EU agreement.
- mpweiher 8y ago
  Except the argument made by the Brexiteers is that the EU can't do trade deals and Britain would be able to do so much better and quicker outside. Hmm...
  - Silhouette 8y ago
    Sorry, I'm not very interested in debating subjective views of what more than 17 million people might have wanted. Little of value ever seems to result from such discussions. All I'm saying is that the original comment by tonyedgecomb seems a bit pessimistic, because whatever happens with Brexit, either the UK will retain the benefits of the new EU arrangement or the UK and Japan have declared a very public intention to form an analogous agreement as quickly as possible to retain the same benefits for both parties.
- nicoburns 8y ago
  If that did occur, wouldn't that allow the UK and the EU to trade freely via Japan...?
  - Silhouette 8y ago
    Not necessarily, because there could (almost almost certainly would) be rules of origin involved. These trade deals reduce or eliminate trade barriers to a useful degree, but they aren't as all-encompassing as full membership of the EU.
pastor_elm 8y ago
Benefits of free-trade? You mean like a devastated blue collar class? Keep British products manufactured in Britain.
- astannard 8y ago
  They were being ironic as we wont be in the zone in a few weeks
- tonyedgecombe 8y ago
  Manufacturing has mostly moved to China, not the EU.
  - Xixi 8y ago
    A lot of manufacturing has moved to Eastern Europe, especially car manufacturing. Ironically, UK was a strong advocate of the EU enlargement...
- oblio 8y ago
  Didn't Britain de-industrialize of its own volition, in the 60s/70s/80s? :)
  - blattimwind 8y ago
    I've honestly only seen/owned at best a handful of products made in the UK. (I look at the country of origin of almost everything I buy, and I generally prefer EU-made things over Chinese-made things). Things that come to mind: - Lorlin switches, and there is (probably "used to be") a Möller plant in the UK. - A hammer made by Thorex. Good concept, poor quality. - A saw made by Thomas Flinn. Poor steel. - Fountain pen ink. - Well that was a short list. Perhaps some English books I have were printed in UK. Though probably not.
    - growlist 8y ago
      There's an industrial estate almost literally a stones throw from my window (here in the UK) that makes all kinds of things, especially Aero related.
porpoisely 8y ago
EU has to allow the UK to leave first before the UK and Japan can negotiate a free trade agreement. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/26/an-seeks-early-free-trade-talks-with-uk-amid-brexit-fears-shinzo-abe https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/26/an-seeks-early...
- isostatic 8y ago
  The EU doesn't have to allow the UK to leave, the UK has to decide to leave, the EU has nothing to do with it. The trouble is if the UK leaves, it loses all the benefits of being in the EU.

Tomte 8y ago

"The service market will be opened, including financial services" This is going to make the UK mad. But apart from that, wasn't there the position that services cannot be part of a trade deal?

danmaz74 8y ago
What to open is decided in a case-by-case basis. When opening one sector is more favorable for one of the two parties, the other one is going to ask something in return...
notahacker 8y ago
There's the EU position that full and equal access to the services market is dependent on also allowing free movement of people, and the fairly standard EU position that foreign companies' access to its services market must depend on them following standards harmonised with EU law. The former is a sticking point for the UK achieving the same level of services access before, the latter an impediment to a UK government ratifying many other plausible trade agreements that would oblige the UK to mirror various EU corporate regulations, restrictions on state aid for some of its larger companies etc without being accused of "betraying Brexit" and "taking orders from Brussels". Also beyond the formally stated positions, the EU has to consider whether not opening up certain areas of its services sector to UK competition might be beneficial or harmful to its Member States, and it might take the view that not allowing London to retain dominance in various financial services and insurance markets would be a very good thing for some European financial centres.
- repolfx 8y ago
  There isn't really much services market in the EU, the "common market" only ever really worked properly for goods. This is one reason the UK doesn't like it much - it's got a more services oriented economy than the other countries, but the EU doesn't care much to open up e.g. German service industries to British competition. Meanwhile the EU only requires free movement of people for trade deals for geographically European countries, because those are the ones it feels it should be able to fully absorb, whereas it has no interest in trying to take over Canada or Japan. So whilst the UK is told to pay billions, accept unlimited immigration and obey the ECJ if it wants a trade deal of any sort whatsoever, Japan is required to do none of those things. Ultimately this makes the EU a much worse deal if you happen to live near it than further away. Also the Commission has made clear that the financial services market in the EU will be entirely closed to the EU no matter what happens, even if some deal is reached. Not tariffs, outright bans. There's no "sticking point" about it - the EU sees loss of access to financial markets as the penalty for any attempt to leave at all, or even just not join. See how Switzerland is also being banned from EU financial markets it previously had access to because of unrelated trade disputes.

_bxg1 8y ago

Finally a piece of good news in global politics

afrisch 8y ago
The best part is that tree trade is not contradictory with setting standards! > For the first time, the trade agreement includes countries' Paris climate deal commitments. > The text also addresses sustainable development and sets standards for labor, safety, environmental and consumer protection.
- _bxg1 8y ago
  For sure. These days it seems like Canada and mainland Europe are the last bastions of civilization.
  - ApolloFortyNine 8y ago
    This sounds like a bit of a hyperbole no?
sonnyblarney 8y ago
"Finally a piece of good news in global politics" The Americans representing untold numbers of businesses attempts to fairly access Chinese markets without having their IP grabbed and given to a local competitors is much bigger 'good news' than this deal. Businesses large and small around the world have had to put up with this and never say anything publicly about it. The trade negotiations between US and China are long, long overdue, and countless respected individuals are backing it. Quite a number of times on FT podcasts I've heard 'I can't say that I'm a Trump supporter, but addressing these issues is welcome' kind of thing. Even the Democrats are essentially supporting Trump on this [1], which is why there's little political fuss about this in daily news. It looks like some kind of deal will be made, and it will be 'very material' and probably beneficial for both the US and China, but also everyone else. The EU-Japan deal is good, but they are advanced nations without tons of trade. A big deal between the US/EU and the rest of Asia and also South America would be a really nice thing if it had the right terms. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-elections-trade/democrat-led-house-seen-backing-trumps-china-trade-war-scrutinizing-talks-with-allies-idUSKCN1ND1HU https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-elections-trade/democ...

tozeur 8y ago

Are there any downsides to this that were perhaps left out of the article?

martin_a 8y ago
Well, if you are not a member state of the EU or Japan it will be harder to sell your products, if EU or Japan can import them cheaper from their partners. But next to that: Probably not.
rjtavares 8y ago
The downside of free trade agreements is well studied: while overall it's a net positive for the economies involved, there are some individual losers.
- tomp 8y ago
  I think the parent means things like, draconian copyright rules, ISDS (investor-state dispute settlement), subversion of customer protection rules (e.g. selling GMO meat in EU), etc. In addition, Japan and EU are obviously similarly (very highly) developed countries, so "free trade" between them is very close to "fair trade" as well, as opposed to e.g. free trade between EU and China would be (EU companies would skirt EU labour and environmental laws by producing stuff in China and freely importing into the EU).
  - nradov 8y ago
    Banning GMO meat doesn't protect consumers. It's just unscientific pandering to special interest groups.
    - ionised 8y ago
      Banning hormone-treated beef and chlorine washed chicken would protect customers from shitty food though.
      - 8y ago

edhelas 8y ago

Is this a good thing in the end? Ecologically, hurting small economies (already happen in the eurozone)…

matt4077 8y ago
Yeah, I hear the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, and Estonia are hurting terribly.
- growlist 8y ago
  But then there are also plenty of small and small-ish economies that haven't done so well from EU (particularly Euro) membership, aren't there?
  - IfOnlyYouKnew 8y ago
    Nope. Ireland has done excellent-it was the poorest country in Europe when they joined in the 1970s, today it’s among the top. Eastern and south-eastern countries had lines for bread when the USSR dissolved. Ten years later, they joined the EU. Today, life in Poland or Hungary is close to catching up with Western Europe. Greece had about the same GDP per capita as Turkey when they joined. Today, it’s closer to 3x Turkey.
    - rfinney 8y ago
      Check. "Ireland [...] was the poorest country in Europe" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_past_and_projected_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita#World_Bank_estimates_between_1970_and_1979 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_past_and_... Check 1972 figures. Spain and Greece were poorer. The unlisted Soviet client states were likely even much poorer. "Poland or Hungary is close to catching up with Western Europe." Poland and Hungary have 1/3 the per capita GDP as Britain. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28no... ) "Greece had about the same GDP per capita as Turkey when they joined. Today, it’s closer to 3x Turkey." ( see previous link). 2017: Greek per capita gdp =~ $18.6K, Turkey =~ $11.5K. Also (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_past_and_projected_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita#IMF_estimates_between_1980_and_1989 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_past_and_... ). Greece joined in 1981: Greece gdp per capita ~= $5.3K, turkey gdp =~$2.2K.

Tohsh7po 8y ago

Will consumers benefit from it? Can Japanese order from amazon.de without customs charges and vice versa?

Tepix 8y ago
amazon.com is US based. This free trade zone is between the EU and Japan.
- Tohsh7po 8y ago
  I have not mentioned .com. There are german and japanese amazon branches
- chrisper 8y ago
  Amazon.de is a different company than amazon.com (by law at least)
pastor_elm 8y ago
What would the Japanese need from the EU besides Airbus planes. Looks like a one-way street to me.
- seren 8y ago
  Not sure if you read the original article, but the exchange between Europe and Japan seems fairly balanced. > EU businesses export €58 billion in goods and €28 billion in services to Japan every year. (snip) Japan exports €69 billion in goods and €18 billion in services to the EU annually.
- Tomte 8y ago
  Food. The EU is an agricultural juggernaut, and Japan has very dense megacities with mountain ranges in between. Not the best situation for self-sufficiency. Fortunately, they make highly sought-after electronic products and cars, which can be exchanged for food.
  - 8y ago

dmix 8y ago

Canada recently made a trade deal with the EU as well. Our country (Canada) hasn't been pushing harder enough for this IMO, considering how greatly we benefitted from NAFTA it should have been our top policy objective for the last couple decades. Modern countries would rather get lost in decades long mega-deals with 1000 conditions for every political crony connection / special-interest group ever than get an actual real "free trade" deal done. There are still so many things that are ridiculously expensive in Canada for no rational (long term) benefit to either party assuming it was a real market. When you could drive an hour south to the US and get countless things for 25% cheaper (clothes, shoes, cars, etc) not to mention the lack of access to media (streaming sites) and sports blackout contracts.

annapurna 8y ago
>There are still so many things that are ridiculously expensive in Canada for no rational (long term) benefit to either party assuming it was a real market. I cannot find the link but no surprises when there was a report (from one of the EU organizations) that we pay the highest cell phone fees.
- dmix 8y ago
  The high cellphone + ISP fees in Canada are a result of the monopoly the ~2-3 telecom companies were given by government a few decades back to "accelerate" broadband and mobile infrastructure development. The only positive tradeoff we've gotten out of decades of paying 25-50% more per month than most countries is that our networks have been cutting edge. We got 3g, 4g, etc before almost everyone. But I don't attribute this to the gov, their investment was long ago, but rather the competence of executives being smart enough to maintain their monopoly without falling into the trap of falling behind as many monopolies do before being trumped by economic progress/tech (ie, see the taxi monopoly lack of tech investment before Uber/Lyft), and via the massive margins they get out of their monopoly pricing providing plenty of capital investment to prevent any sort of competition.
  - matt4077 8y ago
    I doubt there are many countries with more than two or three competing networks. There may be a few more resellers, or even several dozens. But it’s just uneconomical to build the hardware five times over. In any case, a FTA is not going to change it.

TorKlingberg 8y ago

Japan has avoided the madness of tariffs and trade wars that has affected the west recently. Instead they have been quietly negotiating trade deals with everyone and generally getting along. Good on them! Also it includes cheese, which will make westerners in Japan very happy.

titanix2 8y ago
> Also it includes cheese, which will make westerners in Japan very happy. Now that's effectively a big news worth sharing!
hkmurakami 8y ago
I still remember how horridly expensive cheese was in Japan. This is excellent news.
- siruncledrew 8y ago
  That's pretty interesting, is it expensive for all types of cheese from like kraft singles to french brie? Do you have any other stories of common EU/US items that are rare in Japan?
  - stevekemp 8y ago
    I might be being a bit of a snob, but in the context of a cheese-related discussion kraft singles don't really rate mention.
    - oh_sigh 8y ago
      Are you even allowed to call them cheese? I thought they had to be labeled as a processed milk product or something.
      - gruez 8y ago
        They’re called “process cheese product”

zeristor 8y ago

So does Britain get enjoy this for the two months before Brexicution?

isostatic 8y ago
yes Come March 31st the UK has no trade deals with any country. Even the WTO schedules are up for argument in the unelected WTO court.
- Filligree 8y ago
  The WTO court which is very nearly defunct thanks to Trump. Ooh, this'll be fun.
- reubeniv 8y ago
  That's not strictly true, I know a few countries have agreed to roll over the deals the have with the EU over to the UK, not all have been signed and (not a great comfort) the only ones I know of that have (so far) are Isreal and (I think?) Australia
  - isostatic 8y ago
    Australia doesn't have a trade deal with the EU, they've said that the UK leaving will not change their desire for one Israel you're right -- they agreed it last week.
    - reubeniv 8y ago
      Not strictly true again, it's not a FTA but there exists a trade deal in some form and the UK just signed with Australia - https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-and-australia-agree-continuity-of-mutual-recognition-agreement https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-and-australia-agree-co...
      - isostatic 8y ago
        That's not really a trade deal (well it's not listed on the page with the free trade agreements the UK has [0], nor on the list of preferential trade deals the UK has [1]) While the spin is "we're doing business", all this does is "continue to benefit from existing arrangements for mutual recognition" Given that those benefits are so insignificant they don't appear as free trade agreements says it all really. It's to do with certification (not tarrifs) in a few areas (Automotive Products, Pressure Equipment, Medical Devices etc) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_free_trade_agreements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_free_trade_agre... [1] https://fullfact.org/europe/how-many-free-trade-deals-has-eu-done/ https://fullfact.org/europe/how-many-free-trade-deals-has-eu...

hippich 8y ago

While lack of tariffs is nice, as a small-time seller, complying with all these VAT, taxing rules (Germany added new requirement in 2019 to obtain some kind of new tax certificate which is not related to VAT certificate) makes it quite complicated from compliance point alone. But I guess it represents general attitude towards business in europe. Not sure how it is like in Japan. [edit] What I mean is that it is all fine if you can justify hiring a consulting service or actually establish an office there. But if you are too small for that - local rules makes it quite hard to sell in this market. So while free-trade indeed a positive, it is positive only for larger sellers.

babuskov 8y ago
> Germany added new requirement in 2019 to obtain some kind of new tax certificate Is it the tax residence one? We have had it in my country since 2017 and it has been a major PITA when working with smaller partners from US/Canada.
- hippich 8y ago
  I did not actually research it in depth, just posted what Amazon provided to all sellers. My plan is to quickly dispose of existing stock and quit these markets, as my sales do not justify trying to comply with local rules. To be fair, if USA states would start enforcing sales tax collection on foreign sellers - it would be the same story. But for now at the very least states go mostly after out of state sellers, not foreign ones. [EDIT] relevant discussion - https://sellercentral-europe.amazon.com/forums/t/anyone-registered-for-the-new-german-tax-certificate-now-in-jan-2019/183554?page=14 https://sellercentral-europe.amazon.com/forums/t/anyone-regi... Another one catching up - https://sellercentral.amazon.co.uk/forums/t/getting-ready-for-the-german-packaging-law-starts-1st-jan-2019/181112/20 https://sellercentral.amazon.co.uk/forums/t/getting-ready-fo...
fauigerzigerk 8y ago
That's true. But there is some progress on that as well. From Jan 2019, the so called VAT MOSS (mini one stop shop) is open to companies from outside the EU as well: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-changes-to-the-supply-of-digital-services-2019/vat-changes-to-the-supply-of-digital-services-2019 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-changes-to-th... I don't know how it works exactly, but it means that you can now supply digital goods and services to all EU countries after getting registered with the VAT MOSS instead of registering for VAT in every single EU country. Also, for very small suppliers there is now a €10,000 (p.a) threshold (total sales into the EU) below which you don't have to charge VAT at all.

max76 8y ago

"For the first time, the trade agreement includes countries' Paris climate deal commitments." This is a brilliant answer to the tragedy of the commons. Often times people ask why they should make great efforts to be more environmentally friendly when other groups are not. This creates multiparty incentives attached to real economic benefits to keep their word on climate change. I hope The US, China, and Russia all enter economic agreements with similar clauses. EDIT: I didn't mean to single out those three countries. All countries should include these clauses in their economic agreements. India, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Canada are top ten polluters that are not covered in this specific agreement or mentioned by me above.

roywiggins 8y ago
The TPP would have folded in a bunch of environmental protection rules, but the US blew it up. It's debatable how good these protections would have been, but they were not nothing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership#Environmental_protection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership#Envi...
- cyphar 8y ago
  The TPP had many other issues though. Examples include criminal penalties for breaking DRM or disclosing trade secrets, and establishing an international tribunal that allows corporations to sue for monetary damages from a government that passes a law which they feel is discriminatory. (I know the US has trade agreements like this already, but it's a new thing for Australia -- and unfortunately we are now part of the new US-exempt TPP.)
  - dragontamer 8y ago
    The point of that was to stop Malaysia and Singapore from pirating movies and software. I think there's something to be said about the correct distrust of MPAA. But at the same time, Malaysia and Singapore were clear pirate hubs that were harmful to any IP based economy.

exhaze 8y ago

This was news a few months, wonder why it's just now hitting HN. FYI, many import tariffs on products like cheese and meats are not immediately effectively - they gradually phase out the tariffs over a period of something like 8-10 years, so cheese will continue to be expensive for quite a while.

roywiggins 8y ago
It just entered into force today, that's why it's in the news. http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-19-785_en.htm http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-19-785_en.htm
PurpleRamen 8y ago
The contracts takes effect from today on. Months ago they just signed it, but it wasn't executed till now. Needs some time to prepare for such things.

DanielleMolloy 8y ago

Is this meaningful for the average customer? I'd like to import two Switch games to the EU from Japan soon (eBay or PlayAsia). Will the agreement mean that there are no potential customs for me anymore?

vinay427 8y ago
I believe they have to be made in Japan, unless this is an actual customs union which is unlikely. Essentially, if a product is imported from a country A into country B, which has an FTA with country C, it cannot be imported (under the agreement) into country C unless country C has an FTA with country A or countries B and C have some sort of customs union. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-36083664 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-36083664

ThomPete 8y ago

Lowering tarifs in general are good but my bet is that this is not really going to mean that much. This is only good for big corporations. For the rest it's bureaucrazy (pun intended) and frankly won't have that big of an impact no matter how big it is. Neither the EU nor the Japan are able to drive the market in any significant way. So it's great for Siemens but won't really matter to the little startup.

matt4077 8y ago
How is it beaurocracy to go from tariffs to no tariffs? Other than that, your cynicism is bland and boring. Why would consumers not reap at least some benefits from tariffs for cheese falling Faron 40% to zero. It’s not like there’s a big moat around the idea of shipping cheese from France to japan and selling it that would allow some monopolist to capture that difference.
- ThomPete 8y ago
  For the small companies because of compliance they can rarely afford.

zeroname 8y ago

Tariffs worth a billion, what a joke. EU tariffs were already low for the most part. The real trade barriers that the EU imposes are its regulations that are favoring local business. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/2453204/Bent-banana-and-curved-cucumber-rules-dropped-by-EU.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/2453204/Be...

amalrik_maia 8y ago

This is not free trade. Who is John Galt?

anigbrowl 8y ago

Why does it only provide for free movement of capital and goods but not of people?

aboutruby 8y ago
Japan has an anti-immigration policy as far as I know. Seems like it's actually slowly getting better because of the increasing elderly population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Japan
azernik 8y ago
Because the free movement of capital and goods is much more limited than that of EU or EEA members.
lispm 8y ago
because it's just a 'free trade agreement' and Japan is not asking for membership in the EU (or EEA)
- anigbrowl 8y ago
  Labour is tradeable. You should be able to sell your labour with the same freedom others have to sell their goods.
  - lispm 8y ago
    you can trade your labor. Freedom of movement for people in the EU is something different. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/en/sheet/147/free-movement-of-persons http://www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/en/sheet/147/free-m... https://www.bmi.bund.de/EN/topics/migration/law-on-foreigners/freedom-of-movement/freedom-of-movement-node.html https://www.bmi.bund.de/EN/topics/migration/law-on-foreigner... Since Japan is not joining the EU and also not planning to do so, 'Freedom of movement' in the EU is not part of this (trade) agreement.

ucaetano 8y ago

And the UK will miss out.

EGreg 8y ago

UK comes out Japan comes in

lispm 8y ago
Not really. With a free trade agreement Japan is not a member of the EU. Far from it. The UK after Brexit eventually will also get a 'free trade agreement' of some sorts with the EU.
- EGreg 8y ago
  UK comes out Scotland comes in :) https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/oct/07/nicola-sturgeon-snp-undoubtedly-back-peoples-vote-brexit https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/oct/07/nicola-stur...
  - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
    Then half of the NW and NE try to secede to join Scotland. :)

emptyfile 8y ago

"The deal protects 'Geographical Indications' such as Cheddar, Kobe beef and Scotch whiskey" Ironic

Animats 8y ago

Does Britain get kicked out of this deal after Brexit? Probably.

satysin 8y ago
Yes.
- jayalpha 8y ago
  No. They are kicking themselves out.

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ToFab123 8y ago

This is so awesome news. I see that in the local news this morning, that in my home country (Denmark), this free trade agreement is creating lots of news jobs with companies already announcing hundreds of new job. And this is just one day after the announcement. More of this to come in the next days and weeks.

jayalpha 8y ago
Would you mind elaborating?

intake 8y ago

Time to buy a Toyota car