18 September 2026 – The Commission is once again celebrating itself with 232 trade defence measures and 32 new investigations. Yet its 2025 report omits two WTO defeats, contradicts its own accompanying document and justifies steel protection with falling demand. A brief check of the numbers.
232 Trade Defence Measures, Zero Defeats: What Brussels Leaves Out
Brussels presents its 2025 record as a success story. Anyone who checks the numbers finds contradictory figures, protection against falling demand and two lost WTO cases that do not appear in the report at all.
On 17 September, the Commission published its 44th Trade Defence Report. 32 new investigations, 232 measures, 637,000 allegedly protected jobs. The tone of the Commission report is that of a showcase of achievement. The conclusion after reading it is rather different.
Two Defeats in Geneva Go Unmentioned
The most important part is missing. In 2025, the EU lost two WTO panels against Indonesia: in August over countervailing duties on biodiesel and in October over countervailing duties on cold rolled stainless steel. In the stainless steel case, the panel rejected the core of Brussels’ construction, namely the attribution of Chinese financing as an Indonesian subsidy. The Commission appealed both reports to the Appellate Body, which has been dysfunctional since 2020.
This is precisely the manoeuvre Brussels repeatedly accuses other trading partners of using to obstruct the rules based order. The report mentions the stainless steel case only because Egypt raised it in the WTO Committee. As for the outcome, not a word. Instead, China is accused of using the instruments inappropriately.
Numbers That Contradict Each Other
The main report counts 232 measures. The accompanying document published on the same day counts 220. The difference is twelve provisional duties classified as anti dumping measures, counted as measures before they have even been finally adopted. Completed reviews: 29 in the main report, 25 in the table contained in the accompanying document. Of 18 expiry reviews, all 18 ended in an extension. Not a single measure expired in 2025.
Anyone still expecting objective assessment and a level playing field for all parties from the Commission will be disappointed.
Protection Against Falling Demand
The steel safeguard measure was tightened in March because consumption had fallen by 14 per cent between 2021 and 2024. That is not an import shock. It is an economic downturn, to which the Commission responds by cutting tariff quotas. Five months later, it reopened those same quotas in Category 17 for the United Kingdom, Türkiye and Korea because London had demanded it at the May summit. Injury analysis according to the summit calendar. Under the successor regime with a 50 per cent tariff since July 2026, the Commission told Geneva that it was not a safeguard measure.
Its own Access2Markets trade portal calls it “New EU Safeguards“.
Fact Finding in Free Fall
Verification visits to exporters in third countries fell from 191 to 53, in a year with almost record numbers of new investigations. In all 16 China investigations, there was exactly one representative country. The Hearing Officer received 23 requests, held two hearings and granted not a single deadline extension.
Imports are now automatically registered in every investigation. Retroactive duties were ultimately imposed in three out of 26 cases. In the remaining 23, importers carried a tariff risk for months for nothing. That Brussels is deliberately fuelling market uncertainty here should be obvious.
The figure of 637,000 jobs is presented without any methodology. Thirty three new measures accounted for just 12,000 of them. As every year, the number of jobs lost among processors and traders who pay these duties is missing entirely. Anyone who sells trade defence as a success story year after year should at least count the defeats as well.
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