Scrutinizing and Monitoring Trade Remedies, at the WTO and by Governments

With all the new directions in tariff imposition that have taken place in recent years here in the U.S., traditional trade remedies have been overshadowed to some extent. But they haven't gone away, and in fact are as widely used as ever, both in the U.S. and in other countries.

Last month, U.S. Trade Rep. Jamieson Greer called the WTO "ineffective and dysfunctional," and I responded with an op-ed in which I argued that the WTO still works, highlighting trade remedies as an example of an area where the WTO is pretty much the only game in town if you are concerned with trade remedies being imposed on your exporters.

As an example of trade remedies being addressed at the WTO, Kazakhstan recently filed a WTO consultations request against an Indonesian anti-dumping measure. Could Indonesia and Kazakhstan work this issue out bilaterally? Anything is possible, but bilateral discussions rarely resolve disagreements over trade remedies. And even though there is a recently signed Indonesia-EAEU (including Kazakhstan) trade agreement, bilateral (and regional) agreements provide much more limited disciplines on the domestic use of trade remedies than exist under WTO rules. As a result, in practice, the WTO is place to go for trade remedies disputes.

Subjecting these measures to scrutiny at the WTO can be helpful in various ways: (1) to provide transparency on all the trade remedy measures being taken around the world, (2) to address concerns with the imposition of specific trade remedies, and (3) to talk about systemic issues that may arise. In addition to formal disputes such as the Kazakhstan-Indonesia one, WTO committees also play an important role in discussing these issues. (Of course, if we are talking about formal disputes, currently there is the problem of the non-functioning Appellate Body, but Indonesia and Kazakhstan could consider joining the MPIA.)

Finally, on a (somewhat) related point on scrutinizing trade remedies, I recently discovered that the UK Trade Remedies Authority has created what it calls a Post Investigation Trade Flow Monitor that tracks how trade flows have changed after the initiation and determination in its trade remedies investigations:

This dashboard summarises monthly UK imports data sourced from HMRC, Overseas Trade in Goods Statistics. It provides insights into goods imported into the UK that have been, or are currently subject to investigation by the TRA, allowing users to monitor trends and analyse data relevant to our specific cases.  

I just want to note that this is an amazing tool and every government should build something similar! I've often wondered about the impact of trade remedies on actual trade flows. Do imports keep coming in at similar levels as before, so the higher tariffs just raise revenue and increase costs for consumers? Or do imports fall, being replaced by domestic or other foreign products? My guess is that the impact varies quite a bit, but I'm really not sure. Anyway, it's great that the UK government is now providing some data on this, and, as mentioned, I would love to see other governments do the same.