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Every silver lining has a cloud The sealing of a Pacific trade deal is welcome. But spare the cheers Oct 10th 2015 |?From the print edition UNTIL this week, the world had not seen a big multilateral trade pact for over 20 years. The deal that has broken the drought—the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which comprises 12 countries in Asia and the Americas, including the United States and Japan—is welcome. But those who believe in free trade, and the benefits it brings, ought not to miss the bigger picture. The backdrop to this week’s deal is a bleak one. First, the pact itself. It has flaws—what compromise doesn’t?—but the advantages are greater. The negotiators who brokered the agreement in Atlanta did not just lower tariffs in coddled sectors such as agriculture, but also drew up shared rules on everything from visas for business travellers to competition policy. The deal limits veiled forms of protectionism, such as special treatment of state-owned firms and arbitrary import bans after safety scares. The benefits of such steps are hard to quantify, especially as the fine print of the deal has not yet been released, but the most comprehensive assessment thus far reckons they could boost the GDP of its members by 1% by 2025. The impact on emerging-market signatories to the deal is likely to be by far the biggest. Away from the bright spot Viewed from a different angle, however, the tale of TPP tells a different story. First, there is the fact that the agreement has been so hard to sell in America. It took months, and several legislative setbacks, before Barack Obama won the authority to fast-track a congressional vote on TPP. The deal may still be voted down, in America or elsewhere. Those who would succeed Mr Obama as president know that TPP holds few votes. This week Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front-runner and once a promoter of TPP, came out against it. The beneficiaries of TPP—consumers, as well as exporters—are numerous, but their potential gains diffuse.