Scholars have been widely studying political and economic determinants of WTO dispute settlement participation since its initiation in 1995. Yet, the role of sectorial trade dominance and bilateral sectorial trade in WTO trade disputes and retaliation cases remains unclear. Extending previous theories to link dispute settlement initiation and the role of trade, I first argue that trade disputes aim to protect domestic industries against breaches of international trade agreements which leads to a higher likelihood of dispute initiation when sectorial trade is larger. Building on the role of bilateral trade balances, I then claim that the existence of sectorial trade dependencies combined with trade harming policies is perceived as a systemic threat and thus governments initiate more trade dispute cases. I test these assumptions in a quantitative, large-N regression framework using panel and dyadic data from 1995 to 2019. I employ sectorial trade data from CEPII for over 100 countries and newly aggregated data on WTO dispute settlement performance. Promising results support the argument that higher sectoral trade as well as larger bilateral import and export shares increase the probability of initiating a WTO trade dispute. Moreover, these results also persist for the trade dispute cases that reach the final stage of authorization to suspend concessions and retaliate. These findings suggest that complaint parties initiate more trade disputes when strategic trade sectors are harmed by foreign country’s breaches of international trade agreements.