WTO members review safeguard actions, exchange views on measures affecting steel products

Review of legislative notifications

The Committee reviewed notifications of new national safeguard legislation and regulations from Botswana. It also continued its review of legislative notifications from Liberia and the Solomon Islands.

Notifications of safeguard actions

The Committee reviewed 19 members' notifications of safeguard actions, with those taken by Indonesia (seven), Madagascar, the Philippines and Türkiye (four each) accounting for almost 50 per cent of all the safeguard actions reviewed. 

Among the actions that attracted the most interventions were: Egypt's three  investigations on iron and steel products, with four members raising concerns; the European Union's measure on certain ferro-alloying elements, with five members raising concerns; the European Union's investigation on grain-oriented electrical steel, with five members raising concerns; and the United Kingdom's adjustment of tariff rate quotas (TRQs) applied under its measure on certain steel products, with six members making interventions.

US response to certain requests for consultations and proposed suspensions of concessions

Referring to various requests for consultations and proposals to suspend concessions or other obligations previously notified by members to the Committee on Safeguards, the United States explained that it did not consider the tariffs imposed by the US President referenced in these notifications to be safeguard actions. According to the United States, these actions were maintained pursuant to the essential security exception in Article XXI of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 1994. The United States considered that no basis existed, therefore, for these members to request consultations or propose the suspension of concessions under the Safeguards Agreement with respect to the US measures.

India disagreed with the US characterization of its measures and asserted that based on their characteristics they appeared to be within the scope of the Agreement on Safeguards. Brazil and China expressed concern about the broader implications of the US measures for the multilateral trading system and global supply chains. Brazil and India said that they would continue to closely monitor developments concerning these measures.

Online portal for safeguard notifications 

The Chair provided an update regarding the online portal for the submission of safeguard notifications. Twenty-two members have registered to receive access, doubling the number registered at the previous meeting. Members are increasingly relying on the portal to submit notifications of safeguard actions, with more than 20 notifications submitted through the portal since the tool's introduction. 

Next meeting

The next meeting of the Committee on Safeguards is scheduled for the week of 26 October 2026.

Background

Under the WTO rules, a member may apply measures to imports of a product temporarily (take "safeguard" actions) through higher tariffs or other measures if it determines through an investigation that increased imports of a product are causing or threatening to cause serious injury to its domestic industry. Unlike anti-dumping duties, safeguard measures cover imports from all sources, although imports from developing country members with a small share of imports are exempted through special and differential treatment provisions.

More background on safeguards is available here.