The U.S. Doesn’t Need a New Trade Deal With Japan

U.S. and Japanese officials will meet in Washington this week to begin negotiating one of those “best-ever” trade deals President Donald Trump keeps promising. This may not be possible and wouldn’t even have been necessary, if the president had not summarily withdrawn from the Trans-Pacific Partnership in his first week.

Even now, the U.S. would be better served by rejoining that deal, which came into effect at the end of last year after Japan and 10 other countries forged ahead without Washington. The renamed Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership, among other things, cracked open Japan’s once tightly guarded agricultural sector: Tariffs on chilled beef imports fell from 38.5 percent to 27.5 percent for members of the pact and will eventually come down to 9 percent A separate deal between Japan and the European Union has begun lowering tariffs for EU members as well.