New Report Confirms Increased Use of Trade Remedy Cases and Spike in Safeguard Cases

Professor Chad P. Bown, publisher of the Global Antidumping Database, recently issued a report confirming that the number of trade remedy cases is increasing. The report, entitled "Protectionism Continues its Climb", states that the second quarter of 2009 saw a 12.1% increase in initiated antidumping, safeguard and countervailing duty cases.

Among other things, the report notes that India continued the trend of being the most active country seeking to initiate new import restrictions, having initiated 34% of all of the new trade remedy cases during the second quarter of 2009. The U.S. was the second most active country in the second quarter of 2009, initiating 17% of the total number of new cases.

Not surprisingly, the report confirms that China is the primary target of the new trade remedy cases. China was named in 82.6% of newly initiated trade remedy investigations by WTO members and targeted in 17 out of the 17 new cases in which trade remedies were imposed.

The report also confirms a "spike" in the number of new safeguards cases and predicts that this trend "will almost certainly continue to increase throughout the remainder of 2009 and into 2010."

The Global Antidumping Database is a project of Chad P. Bown, an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics and Business at Brandeis University and a Fellow in the Global Economy and Development Program at the Brookings Institution.