Ironing boards, bicycles and rainbow trout may not appear to have much in common, but they are all products that have come under the scrutiny of the Trade Remedies Authority due to suspected unfair trading practices.
The TRA is a relatively new arm’s-length body, set up in 2021 and sponsored by the Department for Business and Trade. Its creation was a necessity after the UK’s departure from the European Union, since our trade remedies functions had previously been carried out by the European Commission.
Nick Baird, a former diplomat who was chief executive of UK Trade and Investment from 2011 to 2013, joined the TRA as board chair at the start of 2024. This followed a period working in the private sector, largely at the international energy company Centrica. In an exclusive interview with CSW, he sets out the role of trade remedies in supporting economic growth, his ambitions for the agency and some reflections on leadership and governance in increasingly challenging times.
Trade remedies – or trade defences as they are known in some jurisdictions – are a series of policy measures designed to protect domestic trade by restricting unfair foreign competition. For Baird, these policy mechanisms have not been well understood when it comes to their role in supporting economic growth. Their use requires fine judgements and careful balancing between potentially conflicting interests.
“What you’re balancing, in simple terms, is the need to protect domestic production, and the jobs associated with that, against the benefits to the consumer of cheaper imports which would compete with that domestic production,” Baird explains.
The conversation is timely. Baird is speaking to CSW just days after Donald Trump was re-elected as US president on a platform that promises a raft of protectionist trade measures and the imposition of tariffs on most imports to the US. While he won’t be drawn on the politics, Baird agrees that trade is an area increasing in political salience, and argues that “the world is moving in a more protectionist direction”. The challenge for UK trade policy is how to adapt to this new reality.
“The big strategic question for the UK is how a medium-sized economy, which is very committed to open trade, adjusts to a more protectionist world,” Baird says. More protectionist, rather than completely protectionist, is the emphasis, but he’s clear that the world is “complicated” and trade is a “dynamic and transitional” area requiring carefully judged, finely balanced responses from policymakers. These responses will, of course, vary from sector to sector. TRA activity to date has ranged from traditional industries such as steel to emerging products such as biodiesel.
Biodiesel, which promises a greener fuel option for aviation and farm machinery – areas that have been harder to decarbonise – offers a useful encapsulation of the TRA’s challenge. “Certain countries are seeking to develop an industry in biodiesel,” Baird explains. “They are doing what in many ways is quite a natural and normal thing to do: providing subsidies to help that industry take off and grow. But when it moves into the export sector, what you’re then potentially doing is providing unfair competition into other countries.”
The question for the UK, which has some small biodiesel producers, is whether to nurture and protect that activity by insulating it from international competition, or to protect the cost to the consumer, which by extension promotes the wider net-zero agenda. “It’s a really important judgement in the context of economic growth as to whether you are protecting a UK industry and its capacity to survive and grow, or whether you’re protecting and supporting the position of the consumer.”
TRA investigations are triggered by industry or trade associations concerned about unfair trading practices, although ministers do also have powers to ask it to investigate. Its investigations fall into three broad categories. The first are dumping investigations, where imported goods flood a market and are sold at a price that undercuts usual market rates. The second are subsidy investigations, where subsidised imports might be threatening UK businesses. And the third are safeguard investigations, where emergency actions are taken in response to a sharply increased volume of imports in a particular market.
Once TRA investigators have carried out their review, and assuming they are satisfied that damage or injury has been caused to UK business, they can issue recommendations to ministers to apply a trade remedy as a counter measure. This might impose a tariff on foreign imports of particular goods, or apply quotas to import volumes with the purpose of levelling the playing field for companies competing in the UK market. “Transparency is a big part of how we operate,” Baird says. “Although if a company does not wish to be identified as triggering an investigation, that is also possible.”
Investigations engage with all parties and make judgements on unfair practices, including applying an economic interest test assessing whether a new measure would be in the overall interests of the UK economy. The test considers impacts on regions, jobs and competition. Recommendations are published first in draft form, and are open to comment from interested parties. Final recommendations then go forward to ministers.
“In trade remedies you really feel you are making a significant difference and are part of the government’s biggest priority: economic growth”
Establishing relationships with industry and building trust is a key focus for the TRA. Baird and the authority’s chief executive, Oliver Griffiths, spend much of their time at industry events, explaining and promoting their work. “For the sectors where there’s been a lot of use of the TRA already, there is extremely good knowledge of us and, I would say, a high level of trust,” Baird says. “All our survey feedback suggests that in the steel sector, for example, they really understand how we work and are highly appreciative of the amount and ease of contact that they can have.”
Setting up a non-departmental public body from scratch with a specialist and nuanced remit is always going to be a big ask, but having come in as its second chair, taking over from Simon Walker, Baird is positive about the TRA’s early achievements. It is, he says, doing “pretty well”, given it had to be set up from a standing start and has onboarded around 150 specialist staff – a mix of lawyers, economists and investigators who combine analyst and forensic accounting skills.
A total of 39 cases have so far been completed, with a further 20 ongoing, and the government has accepted 97% of recommendations put forward, with none challenged on appeal. Its workload, however, is increasing. “Over the last six months, we’ve done as many subsidy and dumping cases as we did over the previous two years,” Baird says. The organisation is now “running hot”, something DBT is well aware of, Baird notes, and negotiations are under way for an appropriate funding settlement at the upcoming spending review.
If the world of global trade is fast-moving, then so too is the TRA’s operating model. The organisation is already reviewing its ways of working and its digital platforms and systems to see how it can investigate cases more quickly and efficiently, using fewer people. “It gives you a sense of how dynamic and transitional both the TRA and the world in which it operates is,” Baird says.
Future challenges include a continued investment in the TRA’s talent pipeline, where progress has been slower. It has “tended to be behind” its recruitment timetable, Baird acknowledges, but the picture is improving, with capability now in place to develop people.
“On the specific area of trade defence, we didn’t have a lot of people operating on that pre-Brexit, within the civil service and elsewhere, because we didn’t need it. There are a few out there in academia but not a huge number. But there are plenty of trade-policy experts and so there’s been an ability to cross-skill them.”
While skills is a challenge, Baird says it is “one of the most interesting and exciting” areas for the TRA, and he speaks passionately of the exciting potential it offers to develop a career that sits at the heart of the government’s policy agenda. Trade remedies is a “great area to get into”, he stresses. “It’s going to be right at the centre. You really feel you are making a significant difference and are part of the government’s biggest priority: economic growth.”
Steeling itself
The Trade Remedies Authority has found itself at odds with ministers over early recommendations to remove safeguards from certain categories of steel. Over-capacity in the world market means that steel is often at high risk of dumping and many jurisdictions, including the US and EU, have taken steps to protect their steel industries. The UK steel industry is currently protected from cheap foreign imports by the imposition of safeguards, which originated in 2018 through membership of the EU. These impose a quota on certain imports of steel products, above which a 25% tariff is levied.
An early job for the TRA post-Brexit was to consider whether the UK should retain these EU safeguards. Ministers rejected TRA recommendations that safeguards be removed from five categories of steel, which triggered emergency legislation and a change to the framework the TRA operates under, to widen the economic interest test and give greater flexibility to ministers. A second consultation and set of recommendations retained the disputed safeguards, and these were further extended in 2024 for another two years.
However, according to World Trade Organisation rules under which the TRA operates, safeguards can only be extended twice, so there is a question about the impact on UK steel when the current safeguards expire in 2026. “In mid-2026 we can no longer do further steel safeguards so what we’re going to need to look at, and the steel industry will ask us to look at, is how much and what sort of protection is needed after that,” says Baird.
This will also have to be done in the context of the UK’s new Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). This will be implemented in 2027 and applies a carbon price on imports of some of the most emissions-intensive industrial goods.
Baird says he was drawn to the role of chair by the combination of helping to direct a still-fledgling organisation to establish itself and the policy area, which sits right at the nexus of the public and private sectors. “Being in there, helping with the development of skills, helping with the culture and the motivation of a completely new organisation, has been very interesting to me,” he says. “So much of my later career has been about helping the public and private sectors work better together. Having a board where you can draw on the expertise of the private sector alongside the expertise of the public sector is hugely beneficial.”
Returning to the public sector in a non-executive role, Baird says he has been struck by a policy, resource and operating context that is more challenging than ever, underscoring the need for the public and private sectors to work together “dynamically and in harmony”.
He picks out three ambitions for the TRA that, if delivered, will mean his term as chair has been a successful one. First, an efficient and effective organisation that is “really humming” and setting the international standard in terms of how it operates. Secondly, a settled process that is supporting UK growth while adjusting to the realities of a more protectionist world. And thirdly, a thriving, motivated workforce with a strong sense of inclusion. “I’m very focused on inclusion because a big part of what I spent my time doing in the last couple of years in Centrica was getting myself reverse-mentored.” Baird said he learned a lot from “bright, younger, diverse people” about how workplace cultures may need to adapt to allow people to flourish in their roles.
“We don’t micromanage. We operate a highly collaborative, no-blame culture, but we are firm, and when there’s a problem it needs to be dealt with collaboratively and constructively”
Asked about his leadership style, Baird says transparency and collaboration are key. “We don’t micromanage. We operate a highly collaborative, no-blame culture, but we are firm, and when there’s a problem it needs to be dealt with collaboratively and constructively,” he says.
“The other thing I find really important in boards is real trust and openness between the executives and the non-executives, and the CEO-chair relationship is really important in that space.” Problems need to be flagged early, he says, and while executives shouldn’t be afraid to highlight risks and issues, they should resist over-promising as that can damage trust.
Skills complementarity is also crucial. “What I’m seeing with our board is private sector members bringing a lot of expertise around cost efficiencies, good project management, KPIs and so on. And we’re seeking to broaden that into better digital expertise and more awareness of what other trade remedies organisations use and how they operate,” Baird says. “That complements the really decent, inclusive culture that we’re seeking to develop, and that comfort with complexity and multi-stakeholder environments, which I think the public sector is good at. We’ve got that combination, so that’s really good.”
The campaign to recruit the TRA’s next chief executive is ongoing, as the current CEO, Oliver Griffiths, will take up a new role at Ofcom from March