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Trade Remedies Authority

Protecting UK business from unfair trade

The UK’s Trade Remedies Authority (TRA) was set up after Brexit to investigate whether new measures are needed to protect UK industries from unfair trading practices and unforeseen surges in imports. These remedies usually take the form of additional duties on those imports.

Trade remedies can be a complicated area to navigate so the TRA is there to help UK businesses of all shapes and sizes. You can find all the tools and resources they provide below.

Anyone can apply for a new trade remedies investigation and you can view already active cases and reviews on the Trade Remedies Service website.


What the TRA does

The TRA makes independent, evidence-based decisions.

In addition to Anti-dumping, Countervailing or Safeguard duties investigations, the TRA runs other reviews relating to measures already in place. These will, in the most part, be initiated as a response to an application from industry.

The TRA is also carrying out transition reviews into existing EU trade remedy measures that affect UK industries. These reviews test if the measures in place are right for the UK or what changes might be needed.

Find out more about the TRA investigation process:

Industries can be affected in different ways, whether it's a producer, importer, up/downstream user or end user of a product.

If you are not sure whether you can benefit from applying to the TRA for any type of review, the TRA’s Pre-Application Office offers a free, confidential and non-obligatory conversation to answer your queries.

The Economic Interest Test (EIT)

EIT is a key component of the UK’s trade remedy framework. It considers the impact of a trade measure on a range of stakeholders, including UK producers as well as upstream and downstream industries, UK importers and consumers. The EIT also considers other factors that might impact demand and supply, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the UK’s exit from the European Union.

By applying the test, the TRA can establish if a trade measure could have negative consequences for the wider UK economy that is disproportionate to the need to have that measure in place for the specific UK industry.

Find out more about the EIT and how you can contribute to it.

Read the TRA blog for some real-life examples of past cases and how the EIT measured trade injustices, their remedies and the impact of these on consumers.


Resources for small businesses


Prospective changes on the remit and powers of the TRA

Business and Trade Secretary of State Kemi Badenoch made a Written Ministerial Statement to the House of Commons on 9 March 2023, outlining plans to bring forward new primary and secondary legislation to be passed by the end of the year on amending the framework the Trade Remedies Authority (TRA) operates within.

The Secretary of State proposes to make the following changes in the trade remedies policy process:

  • Create wider powers for the Secretary of State to call in decisions of the TRA in cases of error or new evidence emerging.
  • Apply new public policy tests alongside the economic interest test (EIT) in determining whether safeguard measures, anti-dumping duties, or countervailing duties should be applied EIT to be advisory not mandatory.
  • Ask the TRA to prepare a range of policy options, and allow the Secretary of State to apply an alternative remedy to the TRA's preferred option where that is in the public interest.
  • Provide the Secretary of State with the powers to revoke remedies without a TRA recommendation if that is in the public interest.