It’s hard to escape the feeling that trade is becoming less liberal, with an uptick in interventionist measures from governments to boost industry and corresponding defensive measures from nations feeling the pressure from cheap imports.
In this environment, the role of organisations like the UK’s Trade Remedies Authority (TRA) becomes ever more important.
Founded in 2021, the independent body investigates allegations of unfair trade practices reported by UK industry, recommending corrective measures to government.
Chartered Institute of Export & International Trade board member, John Alty CB, was appointed to the TRA as a non-executive director this month and shared his thoughts on the appointment.
‘Level playing field’
Alty describes the role of the TRA as “ensuring that there is a level playing field for UK manufacturers in competition with imported products.”
He also highlights its growing importance in the context of increasing unfair practices:
“This responsibility is particularly important at a time when the international trade environment has become more challenging, with high levels of government intervention around the globe.”
Young organisation
The TRA only came into existence in 2021, after the UK left the EU. Up until that point, trade protection was handled in Brussels by European authorities.
Post-Brexit – and for the first time since the 70’s – the UK government had to police trade disputes and work out how to protect domestic industry.
Since then, the TRA has been gaining both personnel and responsibilities, just as trade tensions ramp up across the world.
Heightened caseload
This was reflected in the body’s 2024 annual report, which highlighted an increasing breadth of cases - 37 across 12 countries, equalling the caseload of the body’s previous 22 months in just one year.
This included an increase in the number of dumping investigation, new exporter reviews and circumvention exemption reviews.
Most notably there’s been ongoing evaluation of the safeguards in place to support UK steel.
At a time of unprecedented challenge for the industry, the TRA proposed an extension of the existing measure which protects against sudden surges in import until 2026.
History
A team of investigators, verifiers, lawyers, analysts and policy experts, the TRA probes industry accusations of unfair practices, such as other nations dumping goods in the UK market or benefiting from unfair government subsidies given to national industries.
The body then recommends appropriate action to UK government, in the form of measures like anti-dumping or countervailing duties, or tariff rate quotas (TRQs).
As recently as last week, the TRA applied a new duty of 38.43%-56.01% on imports of US-made S-PVC into the UK, following complaints of price-cutting that hurt UK industry.
Looking ahead
Alty says that he is “delighted” to be joining the board and hopes the role “will deepen my understanding of the trade landscape”.
“I’m sure my engagement with TRA and the Chartered Institute can only enhance my ability to contribute to both organisations.”
Alty was previously acting permanent secretary of the then-Department for International Trade.
From 2016-2021 he was director general for trade policy, responsible for building UK trade capability and developing trade policy post-Brexit. He also served as CEO of the UK Intellectual Property Office and director general for Market Regulation.
He is also a visiting professor at the London School of Economics’ European Institute.