
EU and Japan create world's biggest free trade zone - Nux
https://www.dw.com/en/eu-and-japan-create-worlds-biggest-free-trade-zone/a-47319521
======
TorKlingberg
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.

~~~
drak0n1c
For those interested in why - Japan always had very high tariffs on cheese
(40% on WTO, 37.5% on EU). In comparison, the US has a general tariff of 10%
on cheese, with many exceptions making it 0%.

[http://www.customs.go.jp/english/tariff/2019_2/data/e_04.htm](http://www.customs.go.jp/english/tariff/2019_2/data/e_04.htm)

[https://hts.usitc.gov/?query=cheese](https://hts.usitc.gov/?query=cheese)

Similarly high tariffs across the board on most imports has been the norm in
Japan for decades, with many agricultural products also having quota limits.
This led to potato shortages in 2017.

Free trade is great when applied evenly. If it takes reciprocative pressure
from the US to cause others think differently and change the status quo, so be
it.

~~~
zeroname
> Free trade is great when applied evenly.

Free trade is great even when applied unevenly.

~~~
Barrin92
Surprised this was being downvoted because it is true. If countries engage in
protectionism unilaterally, they are predominantly harming their own consumers
and undermining competition of their own businesses.

As Friedman used to point out, if Japan wants to subsidize its steel at the
cost of their own taxpayers, just take the cheap steel and be thankful for it.

~~~
mrkstu
Which works fine until they own a monopoly to a business with high cost of
entry and decide to raise prices again. Things like this are rarely simple.

~~~
zeroname
That's basically the fallacy of predatory pricing. It doesn't work. Sure, you
can raise prices after killing the competition, but only so far as to not
revive the competition. Your price ends up as the _fair market price_. Cost of
entry is irrelevant here, it's a cost like any other.

~~~
vertex-four
Sure, except that reviving the competition costs money in its own right many
times - it's usually not a Bitcoin miner that can be turned off when it's
unprofitable and turned on again with the flick of a switch when it becomes
profitable to run.

So your price ends up at fair market price... when averaged over many decades,
maybe, but likely not for long at any particular point in time. And in the
meantime workers get screwed over as industries and skillsets lose economic
value.

~~~
zeroname
First of all, where's the evidence of these supposed high-entry monopolies?
Seems more like a thought experiment to me.

Secondly, you're only looking at the negative consequences for _some_ workers.
You're not looking at the benefit to _all_ workers, who pay lower prices as
result of cheaper labor from abroad.

Suppose workers had been guaranteed their jobs for life because of
protectionist policies. This is called mercantilism. Everybody pays more for
everyone else's labor and nobody can benefit from comparative advantage. As a
result, _everyone_ is poorer. This has been known for centuries and it has
been accepted by economists across the political spectrum. Yet politically,
protectionism never ceases to lose appeal.

~~~
kuschku
Have you tried producing and assembling electronics in the west?

You don't have shops to buy parts anymore, you don't have assembly lines
anymore, you don't have people trained in this anymore.

If China decided tomorrow to increase the costs of the electronics they
export, you'd have to accept that.

Apple tried their best to move even some assembly back to the US, and couldn't
even get the simplest custom screws made in the amounts they need. Only a
single small company still had the tech to make them, and they couldn't
produce enough, fast enough.

It's not just a single monopoly, the problem is that entire industries are
gone, and it'd take decades to train workers and regain the institutional
knowledge.

And this is just one example.

And your argument has one more flaw: free trade reduces costs of products, and
wages. But it won't affect cost of housing (except over a timespan of decades
due to cheaper labor and materials, but it still won't solve cost of land).
Nor will it affect cost of utilities.

In our household, we're now spending 71% of our budget on rent and utilities.
Under more protectionist policies, I might pay 20% more for products, but I'd
also be making 20% more wages — and as result, I'd be better off (in fact, my
disposable income after rent, utilities and food would almost triple)

~~~
zeroname
> Have you tried producing and assembling electronics in the west?

Of course not, U.S. labor is far too expensive to do the kind of menial work
required to assemble electronics, unless maybe it's a repair shop for certain
products.

> You don't have shops to buy parts anymore, you don't have assembly lines
> anymore, you don't have people trained in this anymore.

You don't need "local shops" to purchase parts for assembly lines. Ask Elon
Musk if the biggest challenge in building an assembly line is procuring the
parts, he will say: No. You have a worldwide integrated economy where you can
buy basically _anything_. The number one challenge is labor cost.

In any event, training people for electronics assembly is trivial. If you can
take apart an iPhone and put it back together, you're good.

> If China decided tomorrow to increase the costs of the electronics they
> export, you'd have to accept that.

"China" doesn't decide the costs of electronics, individual businesses do. But
even if China was dumb enough to slap tariffs on their own exports, there are
plenty of alternatives. There is no monopoly. In fact, China is doing the
exact opposite: They are artificially lowering the value of their currency to
stay competitive.

You should also really look into how electronics are actually produced, there
are numerous countries involved in it, each specialized into particular parts:

[http://www.worldstopexports.com/electronic-circuit-
component...](http://www.worldstopexports.com/electronic-circuit-component-
exports-country/)

> It's not just a single monopoly, the problem is that entire industries are
> gone, and it'd take decades to train workers and regain the institutional
> knowledge.

Actually, a lot of institutional knowledge remains with the companies that
just use labor abroad. However, it also leaks into the domestic industry,
that's why you have a lot of companies complaining about "IP theft" from
China.

The broader point remains: There _is_ no monopoly. There is plenty of
competition. Even if for a "relatively" short period of time (decades) there
where to exist a monopoly, it could only sustain its higher prices for so long
as it stays unprofitable to rebuild that infrastructure. At that point the
"monopoly pricing" becomes "fair pricing".

> In our household, we're now spending 71% of our budget on rent and
> utilities.

You should probably look into what building regulation (artificial scarcity)
does to the price of rent. You can't blame free trade for that.

> Under more protectionist policies, I might pay 20% more for products, but
> I'd also be making 20% more wages — and as result, I'd be better off (in
> fact, my disposable income after rent, utilities and food would almost
> triple)

First of all, why do you assume that rent and utilities would not rise in
tandem with the cost of goods? Why do you believe rent in Silicon Valley is so
high? It's the scarcity combined with the high wages of the tech workers.

Secondly, _you are losing your competitive advantage_. You are worse off.

------
hippich
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.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
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-
th...](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-changes-to-the-supply-
of-digital-services-2019/vat-changes-to-the-supply-of-digital-services-2019)

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.

~~~
hippich
Just a perspective - €10k with a margin of 5% (is what I see after all the
expenses for such a small volume) leaves you with €500 to comply with
regulations. VAT compliance with the just UK costs us 700 GBP per year so far
and few hours each quarter.

~~~
raverbashing
Cost/bureaucracy of doing business is a common annoyance unfortunately, not
exclusive to one or other country and those should be passed onto the
consumer.

These are rarely trivial on a small scale, small margin business.

~~~
hippich
That, as well as a way for companies to stiff competition -
[https://sermondo.com/the-new-german-packaging-law-amazon-
fba...](https://sermondo.com/the-new-german-packaging-law-amazon-fba/) : "Not
participating in the system may be punished with a fine of up to € 200,000. It
is conceivable that competitors will enforce the distribution ban by civil
law."

------
dmix
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
_> 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
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
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.

~~~
dmix
So how does that explain the high cost of our networks vs other countries? I'm
not convinced a regulated oligopoly is the only positive option.

If anything it's only positive for:

a) the private friends of government who profited when the business was kept
100% Canadian

b) the intelligence agencies who were given plenty of access.

Most of the ownership capital went to a small group of millionaires and
billionaires. Meanwhile the jobs/network/other taxable services would still
exist in Canada regardless of the nationality of the original investors.

Plus the wireless networks continue to be very closely controlled in these
companies favour. They only recently allowed a single competitor into the
marketplace in Canada, Freedom Mobile, and they have the best pricing with
tons of data. The main monopolies still have nothing comparable price-wise -
their only edge remains their network investment which will diminish over time
absent more gov intervention.

But even getting Freedom Mobile, which had plenty of foreign investors, to be
a thing was a huge controversial, challenging, multi-year deal, which was
extremely risky for its investors because the Canadian regulatory agencies
were very close to nipping the deal under extreme political pressure from the
entrenched companies.

How exactly do we as citizens benefit from this?

~~~
IfOnlyYouKnew
I don’t know.. Maybe Canada requires these networks to serve even the rural
parts of the country? That would seem to be expensive. Or they charged
extremely high license fees. Those work like a tax, making the specific
service more expensive, but allowing for government services or lowering your
other taxes.

In any case, it seems like you are maybe focusing too much on conspiratorial
explanations like corruption and sourveillance. I know it’s easy and somewhat
satisfying to immediately assume bad faith, but if you always assume the
worst, that is what you will end up with. Because if honest politicians trying
to balance the complex and competing interests of a modern society somewhat
fairly, and then get spit in the face whenever they meet someone in the
streets, soon you will have driven out the honest ones, or their will to
remain honest. Because why bother, when the reaction is completely
disconnected from your accruing, anyway?

------
max76
"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
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#Envi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-
Pacific_Partnership#Environmental_protection)

~~~
cyphar
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.)

~~~
avar
What's your proposed alternative to this sort of international tribunal? To me
it feels like obviously the correct solution, and e.g. the EU/EEA has this
with the EFTA courts and the WTO has it with its courts. Point in favor:

1\. It makes sense for a corporation in say Malaysia to be able to sue
Australia over state subsidies, otherwise they need to convince their own
governments to bring it up at the inter-state level, and Malaysia may consider
it too small of an issue to piss off Australia

2\. There needs to be one centralized enforcing mechanism. A Malaysian company
can't sue the Australian government in its own courts (or Australia's), both
would have an obvious bias towards their own country.

Even if we assume the courts are fair you'll create N^2 amount of enforcement
relationships for the N countries in the deal. That's just redundant, and
everyone has an interest in centrally set legal precedent.

3\. There need to be damages so countries can't circumvent the trade deal with
what amounts to state-sponsored favoritism with impunity.

~~~
afiori
The presence of a central court that can regulate goverment that act rashly is
one thing, to allow individual companies to sue governments is another.

~~~
avar
Yes it's a different thing. I'm asking you to make the case that it's a bad
thing, which you're not doing.

You're also assuming that all trade disputes are going to involve country X
having an issue with country Y, whereas e.g. in the EU/EEA companies sometimes
sue their own government for being in breach of the trade rules, and prevail
in front of the EFTA court.

E.g. a meat importing company in Iceland sued the Icelandic state over the
Icelandic government's ban on the import of fresh meat from the EU/EEA[1].
They prevailed, and now Iceland's having to allow that, over the objections of
its powerful farming lobby.

It wouldn't have made sense for any foreign EU/EEA government to start a trade
dispute with Iceland over this matter, but it got resolved because a local
company was able to sue and have the EFTA court rule on the matter.

Why shouldn't the aggrieved party be able to sue?

1\. [http://www.eftasurv.int/media/press-releases/Fact-sheet-
Icel...](http://www.eftasurv.int/media/press-releases/Fact-sheet-Iceland_s-
restrictions-on-the-import-of-fresh-meat,-egg-and-dairy-products-in-breach--
ENG.pdf)

~~~
cyphar
As I mentioned in my sister comment, because we have evidence that allowing
companies to do this would've resulted in the tobacco lobby being able to
overturn public health laws in Australia (because they tried to do it within
an arbitration courts that they didn't have jurisdiction in). If the TPP was
signed in 2011, Australia would've had to pay damages to Phillip Morris for
passing plain packaging laws (something that is now becoming a more common law
in many jurisdictions).

The problem with the EFTA (or ECJ) comparison is that those courts are
designed to deal with the laws and directives passed by the EU/EEA. The entire
point of the EU/EEA is that members democratically vote on laws that will
affect members -- thus a violation of said laws by a government is similar (in
principle) to any other violation by a government where an individual can sue
the government for violating a law.

The TPP arbitration process is not like this at all. There is no democratic
agreement on common laws that member states must not violate -- it's a process
to allow a corporation to sue a government for enacting "discriminatory" laws
(unless those laws are "fair and proportionate" \-- which obviously is a very
wishy-washy constraint).

------
_bxg1
Finally a piece of good news in global politics

~~~
afrisch
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
For sure. These days it seems like Canada and mainland Europe are the last
bastions of civilization.

~~~
ApolloFortyNine
This sounds like a bit of a hyperbole no?

------
Tomte
"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?

~~~
notahacker
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
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.

~~~
notahacker
The UK has substantial access to the European markets it's particularly strong
in though, like marine insurance and financial services (including a large
amount of Euro-denominated services business), European markets which we have
voluntarily traded London dominance of for inability to participate in without
relying on European business units. The fact that despite a general
presumption in favour of a right to to bid on them, UK companies are not well
placed to actually win contracts to (e.g) provide advice on German law in
German is largely irrelevant to that and not in any sense an economic
rationale for Brexit. We're not going to get more comprehensive services
agreements with more promising trade partners as a result.

Obviously Canada and Japan have no freedom of movement requirements in their
trade deals, but they also haven't asked for any access to many of the markets
the UK has up until now benefited from. And as you say, the EU has some
inclination to non-recognition of British services as a simple penalty, but it
also has perfectly good reasons to keep Britain out of many of them in the
interests of giving advantages to Member States where the business can be
moved out of London without significant disruption, and because the UK's
negotiating position starts from the ludicrous position that any standards
harmonised with the EU should be possible for the UK to unilaterally rescind
at short notice because sovereignty innit.

The UK has not been told that to "accept unlimited immigration...if it wants a
trade deal of any sort whatsoever" \- quite the opposite - and it is sad that
in an otherwise pretty nuanced post you have resorted to such blatant
misrepresentations.

(It's pretty emblematic of Brexit that the post hoc rationale _for_ leaving
the EU has become so focused on how relatively unattractive the options
offered afterwards are...)

------
exhaze
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
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)

------
Tohsh7po
Will consumers benefit from it? Can Japanese order from amazon.de without
customs charges and vice versa?

~~~
gardaani
Currently I can order cheap products (less than 20€) from China without
customs fees or VAT. The shipping cost is around 1€. It means that it is
cheaper to buy from China than from my local store. Unfortunately, that is
about to change soon (customs fees for all products from China).

Having something like that between EU and Japan would definitely boost the
trade.

Edit: I just checked and the same no customs fees rule applies already to
Japan. I wonder if it is going to change at the same time as Chinese products
get the customs fees.

~~~
21
The shipping only costs 1€ because China is abusing the international post
system - the shipment cost is subsidized from your own taxes.

[https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/2169144/ch...](https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/2169144/chinas-
cheap-shipping-advantage-explained)

~~~
FabHK
Yeah. What I found particularly galling is that often it's cheaper to send
something from Shenzhen to Europe (from aliexpress, say) than the 50 km over
to Hong Kong. Arghh.

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

~~~
satysin
Yes.

~~~
jayalpha
No. They are kicking themselves out.

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

~~~
rjtavares
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
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
Banning GMO meat doesn't protect consumers. It's just unscientific pandering
to special interest groups.

~~~
tomp
You probably meant to write _allowing_ GMOs is pandering to special interest
groups?

[https://qz.com/1524049/monsanto-is-at-the-center-of-a-
plagia...](https://qz.com/1524049/monsanto-is-at-the-center-of-a-plagiarism-
scandal-rocking-the-eu/)

~~~
pawelmurias
It's benefiting the special interest of GMO companies at the expense of the
special interests of stupid people who are irrationally scared of them.

~~~
superpermutat0r
GMOs, together with massive animal agriculture are a black swan in the making.
Let's modify the organisms, create billions of them, have them as a testing
ground for bacteria and viruses, let the bacteria and viruses evolve to
eventually kill the resistant individuals, then after it happens we need 10
more years until more than a thousand billion individuals produce a human
targeting strain.

There is absolutely no scientific way anyone can measure the risk without the
effect of time.

Not to mention that my story is only one outcome out of many downsides and
it's already happening with antibiotics abuse in animal ag.

The avian flu is a good past example. The disease sparked from a population of
animals we raise the most. Hundreds of billions of chickens were Petri dishes
for the ultimate strain of mammal killers. Intuitively these kinds of
situations are inevitable.

~~~
pawelmurias
How is raising GMO animals more risky? Or do you think the EU should mandate
farming boars instead of pigs?

~~~
superpermutat0r
If you genetically modify animals to have a stronger immune system there's
going to be a natural pressure for stronger bacteria.

Just like giving animals antibiotics to spur their growth is riskier than not.

~~~
nradov
Animals have been genetically modifying themselves to have stronger immune
systems for millions of years. Are you proposing to halt evolution through
natural selection?

~~~
superpermutat0r
I am not. I am saying that evolution is time tested on a huge scale, GMO can
never be.

By using GMOs one is definitely going to get black swans.

~~~
nradov
Other techniques can produce genetic changes just as large as direct genetic
modification. For example, irradiation, interspecies hybridization, and
selective breeding. So your "black swan" argument is invalid.

~~~
tomp
Which of those techniques can implant virus/bacterial gene into plant DNA?

It’s like saying “nuclear bomb could happen randomly in the universe” like
yeah, it _could_ (and there are actually examples of natural reactors), but
what are the odds, versus human engineering?!

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

~~~
lispm
because it's just a 'free trade agreement' and Japan is not asking for
membership in the EU (or EEA)

~~~
anigbrowl
Labour is tradeable. You should be able to sell your labour with the same
freedom others have to sell their goods.

~~~
lispm
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-m...](http://www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/en/sheet/147/free-
movement-of-persons)

[https://www.bmi.bund.de/EN/topics/migration/law-on-
foreigner...](https://www.bmi.bund.de/EN/topics/migration/law-on-
foreigners/freedom-of-movement/freedom-of-movement-node.html)

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.

------
DanielleMolloy
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
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)

------
ToFab123
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
Would you mind elaborating?

------
ucaetano
And the UK will miss out.

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

~~~
matt4077
Yeah, I hear the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, and Estonia are hurting
terribly.

~~~
growlist
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
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
Check.

 _" Ireland [...] was the poorest country in Europe"_

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_past_and_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_past_and_projected_GDP_\(nominal\)_per_capita#World_Bank_estimates_between_1970_and_1979)

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_%28no...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29_per_capita)
)

 _" 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_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_past_and_projected_GDP_\(nominal\)_per_capita#IMF_estimates_between_1980_and_1989)
). Greece joined in 1981: Greece gdp per capita ~= $5.3K, turkey gdp =~$2.2K.

~~~
alkyon
"Poland and Hungary have 1/3 the per capita GDP as Britain." More accurate
comaparision would involve PPP numbers. $43k UK vs $29k Poland and $28k
Hungary. So after all they ARE catching...
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_\(PPP\)_per_capita)

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

Ironic

------
EGreg
UK comes out Japan comes in

~~~
lispm
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
UK comes out

Scotland comes in :)

[https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/oct/07/nicola-
stur...](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/oct/07/nicola-sturgeon-snp-
undoubtedly-back-peoples-vote-brexit)

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Then half of the NW and NE try to secede to join Scotland. :)

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

~~~
growlist
So then it IS apparently possible to have a free trade zone without freedom of
movement.

~~~
afrisch
Of course. As a matter of fact, UK was never part of the Schengen Area.

~~~
tomp
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).

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

~~~
isostatic
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.

~~~
reubeniv
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
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
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-
co...](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-and-australia-agree-continuity-
of-mutual-recognition-agreement)

~~~
isostatic
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_agre...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_free_trade_agreements)

[1] [https://fullfact.org/europe/how-many-free-trade-deals-has-
eu...](https://fullfact.org/europe/how-many-free-trade-deals-has-eu-done/)

------
zeroname
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/Be...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/2453204/Bent-
banana-and-curved-cucumber-rules-dropped-by-EU.html)

------
ThomPete
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
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
For the small companies because of compliance they can rarely afford.

