The importance of the EU’s trade defence arsenal is underscored, among other factors, by persistent global overcapacity in a range of sectors, which has significant distorting effects on international markets, and by the weaponisation of trade, including through economic coercion amid growing geopolitical tensions. First, the EU’s traditional trade defensive instruments (TDIs), which are based on multilateral trade agreements going back to Codes developed under the 1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade; and second, the EU’s more recent autonomous trade instruments, most of which were enacted between 2019 and 2024. TDIs enable the EU to deter and combat unfair trade practices from companies and public authorities of third countries, shield EU industries and jobs from these practices, and restore a level playing field for EU companies in the internal market. Against the backdrop of the United States’ recent unilateral tariff policies, which are likely to lead to a diversion of trade flows to other markets, including the EU, and to a further increase in the global use of trade defence measures, the relevance of the EU’s trade defence toolbox is set to grow in the future. Read the complete briefing on ‘Understanding the EU trade defence toolbox‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.