The trade relationship between the EU and Africa has been traditionally considered under the development agenda of the EU Commission. African countries being traditional export markets for EU goods and providers of raw materials for EU supply chains, the EU-African trade in goods has been traditionally exempted from EU trade remedies, while only a handful African countries have addressed EU exports under that prism. However, the emergence of China as a major investor in Africa, and its participation to the establishment of industrial bases in several African countries is causing a shift in the EU approach, as evidenced by the recent measures and investigations initiated by the EU Commission against Egypt and Morocco. The increasing pressure exerted by the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has led the EU Commission to adopt novel and sophisticated approaches to tackle these new avenues for unfair imports within the framework of the WTO agreements. That renewed focus on trade defence investigations is also increasingly shared by African countries, for which these new Chinese-owned African-based industries are a threat to their established or developing manufacturing sectors.