The E.U.-Japan Trade Deal: What’s in It and Why It Matters<br />Quite the opposite." Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan said the deal signified the creation of "the world’s largest free, advanced, industrialized economic zone."<br />Here’s what you need to know about the deal: The core of the agreement aims to increase the flow of Japanese cars to Europe and of European food to Japan.<br />Negotiators have refused to include whaling and logging in the talks, which has angered environmental groups — Greenpeace has characterized the deal as "a huge transfer of power from people to big business."<br />Ms. Malmstrom responded this week by saying organizations like Greenpeace would be opposed to "any trade agreement," ostensibly a criticism of the group’s stance against trade liberalization.<br />By JAMES KANTERJULY 6, 2017<br />BRUSSELS — The European Union and Japan announced a broad agreement on Thursday<br />that would lower barriers on virtually all the goods traded between them, a pointed challenge to President Trump on the eve of a summit meeting of world leaders in Germany.<br />Painting eyes on symbolic daruma dolls to mark agmnt at Ministers’ level on #EUJapan trade deal, in prep for summit https://t.co/0RHRXBZlfv pic.twitter.com/L7tQe8hdNA Even without rules on whales<br />and wood, the deal is the biggest bilateral trade agreement ever struck by the European Union, covering about a quarter of the global economy.<br />Together, the European Union and Japan would constitute a trading bloc of a size to rival<br />that created by the North American Free Trade Agreement, presently the world’s biggest free trade zone (and one that Mr. Trump wants to renegotiate).<br />Though the deal still needs further negotiation and approval before it can take effect, it represents<br />an act of geopolitical theater, a day before a Group of 20 summit meeting begins in Hamburg.