WeeGord the EU have a bilateral free trade deal with japan that was signed in 2018 as I recall, so yes you are right, though I am not sure you can necessarily compare one deal with the other without looking at the detail, not everything with Japan - EU is free. Has the UK negotiating powerhouse managed to get a better deal than the EU? You wouldn't think so, but I don't know the details and I believe Japan have said they won't sign anything till the spat with the EU is sorted, Japan may be better leveraging the EU's deal with the UK rather than signing their own, I suppose is the thought process there.