Under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, member nations may, under certain circumstances, take steps to apply restrictions on imports they deem to be harmful to their domestic industries. These policy measures are also known as trade remedy actions.
For example, the WTO Anti-Dumping Agreement of 1994 allows members to apply a duty on imports that are dumped on their market—i.e., sold at a price that is lower than in the exporter’s home market. Before acting, the importing member must conduct an investigation to determine that dumping is taking place and that it harms, or threatens to harm, local industry.
This database collects information on the use of these types of temporary trade barriers by 30 countries from the 1980s through 2024. In addition to antidumping measures, it includes countervailing measures taken to counter imports benefiting from foreign subsidies and safeguard measures, which respond to a sudden surge of imports.
Since the 1980s, both developed and developing countries have increasingly resorted to these measures, raising questions about their causes, consequences for global trade, and the extent to which their use is justified.
This database seeks to improve transparency on these trade policy actions. It draws on notifications by the implementing country to the WTO and national investigation case documents. It includes investigations initiated and/or measures implemented by countries, including a significant amount of information on the initiating cases (and the timing of their progression), the product or product group involved, the national petitioners and foreign producers targeted, and the resulting measured applied. The time series accounts for measures that may have been suspended.