Paul Krugman: The Pacific Trade Pact Is Big, but Is It a Huge Deal?

I've been getting a fair bit of correspondence from readers wondering why I have not written about the negotiations for a Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, which many regard as something both immense and sinister. The reason: I have been having a hard time figuring out why this deal is especially important. The usual rhetoric - from supporters and opponents alike - stresses the total size of the economies involved: hundreds of millions of people! Forty percent of global output!

But that tells you nothing much. After all, the Iceland-China free trade agreement, which was signed earlier this year, created a free-trade zone with 1.36 billion people. But only 300,000 of those people live in Iceland, and nobody considers the agreement a big deal.