UK Wants New Trade Defense ‘Powers’ to Keep Pace With Economic Security Threats

The strategy, delivered to Parliament by the Department for Business and Trade, said the U.K. has seen a “convergence of economic security and economic policymaking” by other countries in recent years, and the U.K. needs to keep up.

“While the UK will continue to support the broad principle of free and fair trade, and will remain eternally vigilant to the dangers of rash escalation, we cannot afford to get left behind in this increasingly unfair and protectionist world,” the agency said. “We will prepare the right trade defence toolkit, so that we are ready for whatever might be thrown our way.”

The country plans to “create new powers to face these new threats,” although it didn’t offer more details on what those powers may entail. It plans to seek industry feedback on these new powers, which it will use to “respond to deliberate economic pressure against the UK, to better protect growth and security against a burgeoning range of harms and threats.”

It also plans to create a new Economic Security Advisory Service, based within the Department for Business and Trade, that will “streamline” the government’s approach to partner with British businesses on export controls and other economic security issues. The service will better connect government officials with U.K. businesses to protect British innovation and competitiveness against “economic security risks and threats,” the U.K. said. The service also will also offer advice and guidance to companies.

The U.K. stressed that it’s not “lapsing into protectionism,” and said it hopes to never “have to use our new trade defence powers.” But “like insurance, it is far better to have them and not need them, than to need them and not have them.” It said it will use new powers on a case-by-case basis.

It also will continue trying to coordinate controls in multilateral and bilateral forums with allies, although it said some of those forums aren’t working as well as they used to. Government officials and industry representatives have increasingly turned away from the multilateral Wassenaar Arrangement, which has been hampered by Russia’s membership because Moscow can veto new proposals (see 2405160081).

“Today the institutions and norms that policed these understandings are struggling to adapt to the pace of rising unfair trading practices and resulting protectionism,” the U.K. said.

The strategy also said the U.K. plans to strengthen its trade remedies system, which is too “slow and unwieldy.” The U.K. plans to “take steps at the earliest opportunity” to improve its use of tariffs to respond to unfair practices by other countries.

“As soon as parliamentary time allows, we will seek to introduce legislation to adjust the [trade remedy authority’s] policy guidance and operating framework, enabling it to adopt a more assertive approach on issues like imports from countries with unfair market distortions,” the U.K. said. It also wants to “improve businesses’ access to trade remedies by reducing the cost and increasing the speed of applications,” and will “make the trade remedies system more accountable to Ministers, enabling swift and sufficient protections for businesses through government intervention where necessary.”

The U.K. also said it plans to join the Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement (MPIA), which is an alternative to the World Trade Organization's defunct Appellate Body. The country described the MPIA as "a temporary arbitration arrangement for resolving appeals while the dispute settlement system remains only partially operational." The U.K. "remains dedicated to re-establishing a fully functioning WTO dispute settlement system and will continue collaborating with other WTO Members to achieve this objective."