  The majority of stars form in a clustered environment. This has an impact on
the evolution of surrounding protoplanetary discs (PPDs) due to either
photoevaporation or tidal truncation. Consequently, the development of planets
depends on formation environment. Here we present the first thorough
investigation of tidally induced angular momentum loss in PPDs in the distant
regime, partly motivated by claims in the literature for the importance of
distant encounters in disc evolution. We employ both theoretical predictions
and dynamical/hydrodynamical simulations in 2D and 3D. Our theoretical analysis
is based on that of Ostriker (1994) and leads us to conclude that in the limit
that the closest approach distance $x_{min} \gg r$, the radius of a particle
ring, the fractional change in angular momentum scales as $(x_{min}/r)^{-5}$.
This asymptotic limit ensures that the cumulative effect of distant encounters
is minor in terms of its influence on disc evolution. The angular momentum
transfer is dominated by the $m=2$ Lindblad resonance for closer encounters and
by the $m=1$, $\omega = 0$ Lindblad resonance at large $x_{min}/r$. We
contextualise these results by comparing expected angular momentum loss for the
outer edge of a PPD due to distant and close encounters. Contrary to the
suggestions of previous works we do not find that distant encounters contribute
significantly to angular momentum loss in PPDs. We define an upper limit for
closest approach distance where interactions are significant as a function of
arbitrary host to perturber mass ratio $M_2/M_1$.
