The Use of Trade Remedies Against China: Data Since WTO Entry Shows Frequent, Steady Usage

In recent months, news reports and commentary have suggested that there has been a surge in the use of trade remedies – anti-dumping duties, countervailing duties, and safeguards – against Chinese products. For example, in a Washington Post op-ed, Brian Deese, the former director of the National Economic Council in the Biden administration, highlighted the following developments:

The right approach is for the United States to build an international coalition to send a clear message to China that its current policy choices are neither acceptable nor sustainable. Other countries are moving in this direction. In recent months, Brazil has launched several investigations into the alleged dumping of Chinese industrial products. Vietnam, Thailand, South Africa and Mexico have each taken steps to protect domestic industries from Chinese exports. The European Union has undertaken an anti-dumping investigation into Chinese EVs. And India already has more anti-dumping orders than any other country.

However, these recent cases do not indicate as much of a shift in trade policy as some might think. In fact, trade remedies against Chinese imports have been a steady feature of the trading system since China's entry into the WTO in 2001. In this piece, we present data from the Chinese government's Trade Remedy Information Center (link in Chinese) to illustrate this point.

The following table shows the number of trade remedy investigations initiated against Chinese imports by all countries over this period:

The data in the table above shows that the total number of trade remedy investigations initiated against Chinese imports has fluctuated from a low of 46 in 2022 to a high of 131 in 2020. In most years during this period, the number falls between 70 and 105. (In every year covered, anti-dumping actions make up a majority of the investigations.)

It is worth noting that partial year data from 2024 shows that this year could be a record. So far this year, there have been 94 new cases. It may be that this trend stays on pace for the rest of the year, or it may tail off a bit and leave us with a figure that is just at the higher end of yearly cases. Regardless, when looked at in the context of the past two decades, it is not a radical departure from the steady stream of cases that have been brought.

Focusing on cases initiated in the U.S., the following chart based on data from the Trade Remedies Information Center shows a surge in U.S. trade remedy cases just after China joined the WTO, with another surge in the midst of the financial crisis, and again at the end of the Obama administration and during the Trump administration:

A similar trend of a surge in new cases after China's WTO accession can be found with the EU, as shown in the chart below:

Data for the trade remedy cases initiated by the other countries mentioned in the op-ed by Deese is as follows: