On 20 January 2021, President Biden finally took office as the 46th President of the United States. Warm words naturally followed from EU and world leaders, congratulating the new President on his elevation to the office.

President Biden's first acts in office were to reverse some elements of former President Trump's legacy. These included executive orders to rejoin the Paris Climate Change Accord, reinforced measures against COVID-19, social measures, suspending funding for Trump's border wall and rescinding permits for the building of the Keystone XL pipeline through a national park.

President Biden has long been a supporter of trade liberalisation: as Vice President he championed the TPP, and as a Senator he voted for NAFTA and China’s entry into the WTO. However, noticeable by its absence is any change to the notably aggressive Trumpian trade policy in his initial package of measures.

At the time of writing, there has been no movement on supporting the appointment of a new WTO Director General or revitalising the paralysed WTO appellate body. Early signals suggest that Biden will be hawkish on China. There has been no move so far to undo the damaging Section US 232 tariffs that, at least for the steel industry, were the most notable and damaging action of the Trump presidency.

Indeed, on his fourth day in office, President Biden signed an executive order further strengthening 'Buy American' regulations. For now, at least, it would seem that the motivation -if not the rhetoric – behind the 'America First' strategy of the previous administration has not (yet) changed.

This change of leadership but continuation of the existing approach to trade is one which EU leaders should take note of: while free trade is vital to economic growth, that freedom is contingent on fairness and fair play. The EU should defend its interests: other regions are willing to take advantage of Europe’s promotion of ‘free’ trade without sharing its matching commitment to ‘fair’.

For steel, this means extending and reinforcing the steel safeguard, dealing with global steel excess capacity at its principal source, swiftly deploying the full extent of available remedial trade defences when there are grounds to do so, and taking pro-competitive steps to improve raw material flows – such as by avoiding scrap export leakage out of the EU – and ensuring that carbon leakage measures remain firmly in place to encourage other regions to follow Europe’s decarbonisation lead.