The European Union’s Trade Retaliation – Rebalancing the United States’ Steel and Aluminium Measures

Abstract

The European Union’s does not often make use of its re-balancing powers under the WTO Agreements. Regulation (EU) 654/2014, better known as the ‘Enforcement Regulation’, builds on the possibilities for retaliation contained in the WTO Agreement on Safeguards, and is, generally, seen as an exceptional instrument. In fact, re-balancing measures are a most rare occurrence. This note will address the Enforcement Regulation’s origin, its limitation, and its application to the 2018 US steel and aluminium measures. In particular, this note seeks to shed some light on the Union’s internal workings when designing re-balancing measures, and will, therefore, also have regard to the Union’s Comitology procedure.