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Extreme environments, especially drought and high salt conditions, seriously affect plant growth and development. Ethylene-responsive factor (ERF) transcription factors play an important role in salt stress response. In this study, a significantly upregulated ERF gene was identified in 84K (<i>Populus alba</i> × <i>P. glandulosa</i>), which was named <i>PagERF072</i>. <i>PagERF072</i> was confirmed to be a nuclear-localized protein. The results of yeast two-hybrid (Y2H) assay showed that PagERF072 protein exhibited no self-activating activity, and yeast one-hybrid (Y1H) demonstrated that PagERF072 could specifically bind to GCC-box element. Under salt stress, the transgenic poplar lines overexpressing <i>PagERF072</i> showed improved salt tolerance. The activities of peroxidase (POD), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) in transgenic poplars were significantly increased relative to those of wild-type (WT) plants, whereas malondialdehyde (MDA) content showed an opposite trend. In addition, reactive oxygen species (ROS) was significantly reduced, and the expression levels of POD- and SOD-related genes were significantly increased in transgenic poplars under salt stress compared with WT. All results indicate that overexpression of the <i>PagERF072</i> gene can improve the salt tolerance of transgenic poplars.