These are dark days for the global trading system. Donald Trump seems intent on testing to destruction its resilience to protectionism and unilateralism. China, although it makes noises about being part of an alliance to restrain or outflank the US president, forges ahead with its own nationalist development strategy. Like Mr Trump, Beijing wrongly seems to regard the world economy as a zero-sum game.
It is some cause for cheer, then, that on Tuesday the world's second- and fourth-largest trading blocs, the EU and Japan, held the official signing ceremony for a bilateral trade deal that was agreed in principle last year after four years of relatively straightforward talks with little public opposition.
Yet the agreement, while welcome, falls short of an adequate response to the threats to global commerce. This is not just because it does not include the US and China. It is because the EU in particular has prioritised speed over quality in its rush to rack up bilateral trade deals around the globe.
Much credit for the agreement, and for his approach to trade policy more generally, should go to Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister. Beyond driving forward this bilateral deal with the EU, he was instrumental in reviving the Trans-Pacific Partnership after Mr Trump pulled the US out of it. Shorn of the more restrictive provisions on intellectual property rights, the pointedly renamed Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership also became a better deal.
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