Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2667 actions· ✨ 89 recent

The Department of Commerce's International Trade Administration published a Federal Register notice on 10 April 2026 (91 FR 18412, doc 2026-06952) opening the inaugural Call for Proposals for the American AI Exports Program established under Executive Order 14320. Proposals are accepted from 1 April 2026 through 5:00 pm EDT on 30 June 2026 from US industry-led "pre-set" consortia offering full-stack American AI export packages — AI-optimised hardware, data pipelines, AI models and systems, security and cybersecurity measures, and sector-specific applications — for presentation by the US government to foreign public- and private-sector buyers. Designated consortia receive priority US-government advocacy, priority consideration for export-control licence engagement, interagency coordination, and federal-financing referrals (EXIM, DFC), with a 14-business-day completeness review and 60-calendar-day designation decision once a proposal is deemed complete.

President Trump signed Executive Order "Ending Certain Tariff Actions" on 20 February 2026 (Federal Register doc 2026-03832, published 25 February 2026), terminating the additional ad-valorem duties imposed under nine prior IEEPA-based executive orders. The order followed within hours of the US Supreme Court's 6-3 decision the same day in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, 607 U.S. ___ (2026), holding that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorize the President to impose tariffs and vacating the Trump 2.0 IEEPA tariff regime. The EO directs CBP to cease collection "as soon as practicable"; CSMS guidance set the collection-end date at 12:00 a.m. eastern on 24 February 2026. The order explicitly preserves all underlying national-emergency declarations and all non-IEEPA trade actions — Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, Section 301 of the Trade Act, Section 122 of the Trade Act, and Section 201 — so the Section 232 cascade and the paired Section 122 10% temporary surcharge (effective 24 Feb 2026) remain in force. This is the first SCOTUS-driven repeal of a presidential tariff regime in the modern era and recalibrates the entire post-2024 US tariff architecture by removing IEEPA as a legal pillar.

President Trump signed a Presidential Proclamation on 20 February 2026 invoking Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 (19 U.S.C. § 2132) to impose a temporary 10% ad-valorem import surcharge on articles imported into the United States, effective 12:01 a.m. EST on 24 February 2026. The proclamation was issued within hours of the US Supreme Court's 20 February 2026 ruling in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, which held that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) does not authorize the president to set tariffs and vacated the IEEPA-based reciprocal-tariff regime previously in effect. The Section 122 surcharge is statutorily limited to 150 days (terminates 24 July 2026 absent Congressional extension) and the statute caps any such surcharge at 15% ad valorem. Goods qualifying as USMCA originating from Canada or Mexico are exempt; CAFTA-DR textile/apparel articles meeting specified rules of origin are exempt; and a substantial product-exception list excludes critical minerals, energy products, certain pharmaceuticals, electronics, vehicles, aerospace products, specified agricultural goods, and goods already subject to Section 232 duties (the Section 122 duty does not stack on Section 232).

The FCC adopted a Report and Order (FCC 25-49) on 7 August 2025 — the first comprehensive overhaul of submarine cable landing license rules since 2001 — effective 26 November 2025. The order prohibits Indefeasible Right of Use (IRU) agreements that would give entities from designated foreign adversary countries (China including Hong Kong and Macau, Cuba, Iran, DPRK, Russia, and Venezuela) control over Submarine Line Terminal Equipment (SLTE) on US cable landings, and mandates new annual reporting plus certification/disclosure requirements covering ownership, cybersecurity and physical security plans, and FCC Covered List compliance. The order operationalises the FCC's bifurcated policy package: accelerating legitimate commercial cable buildout while hardening national-security review for foreign-adversary-connected infrastructure.

On 13 May 2025, two days before the AI Diffusion Rule's primary 15 May 2025 compliance date, the Trump administration's BIS announced it would rescind the Biden-era Framework for AI Diffusion (90 FR 4544) and simultaneously issued three guidance documents that re-routed US AI export policy through existing EAR authorities. The package comprises (1) GP10 guidance asserting that all ECCN 3A090 ICs designed by PRC-headquartered firms are presumptively EAR-violative, with Huawei Ascend 910B/910C/910D processors named explicitly — making US- and non-US-person use, transfer, financing, or servicing of those chips anywhere in the world a presumptive General Prohibition 10 violation; (2) a policy statement warning industry that supplying US advanced computing ICs for training or inference of Chinese AI models risks EAR enforcement; and (3) industry guidance on diversion-prevention diligence. BIS stated a formal Federal Register rescission and replacement rule would follow.

President Trump signed Executive Order 14257 on 2 April 2025 declaring a national emergency over US trade deficits and imposing a baseline 10% ad-valorem tariff on imports from nearly all trading partners effective 5 April, with higher country-specific "reciprocal" rates effective 9 April. The rate schedule was constructed from a formula tied to bilateral goods-trade deficits and ranged from 10% (UK, Singapore, Brazil, Australia, others) through 20% (EU), 24% (Japan), 25% (Korea), 32% (Taiwan, Indonesia, Switzerland), 34% (China, later raised to 84% then 125% during the April escalation), 46% (Vietnam), 49% (Cambodia). Multiple subsequent EOs paused the country-specific rates for 90 days for non-China destinations on 9 April while keeping the 10% baseline, pending bilateral negotiations.

President Trump signed Executive Order 14179 on 23 January 2025 (published in the Federal Register on 31 January 2025 as 90 FR 8741, doc 2025-02172). The order revokes Biden-era Executive Order 14110 of 30 October 2023 ("Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence") and directs federal agencies to identify and rescind, revise, or suspend any policies, regulations, memoranda, or guidance documents adopted pursuant to the revoked Biden order. It mandates that the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, the Special Advisor for AI and Crypto, and the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy develop an AI Action Plan within 180 days to "sustain and enhance America's global AI dominance." The plan was released on 23 July 2025. EO 14179 reframes US AI industrial-policy posture from safety-first regulation to deregulation, infrastructure investment, and export-competitiveness.

The Bureau of Industry and Security signed an Interim Final Rule on 13 January 2025 (90 FR 4544, published 15 January 2025) introducing the first horizontal export-control regime for advanced AI compute and closed-weight model weights. It revised ECCN 3A090 advanced-IC thresholds, created a new ECCN 4E091 covering closed-weight model weights trained on more than 10^26 operations, and bucketed every destination worldwide into a three-tier country group: Tier 1 (~18 close allies, license-free flows), Tier 2 (the rest of the world, per-country compute caps with National VEU and Universal VEU pathways), Tier 3 (US arms-embargoed destinations including China and Russia under comprehensive denial). It added license exceptions AIA, ACM, and LPP and set staggered compliance dates of 15 May 2025 (general) and 15 January 2026 (data-center / model-weight provisions). The Trump administration's BIS rescinded the rule on 13 May 2025 — two days before the primary compliance date — but it was on the books for four months and shaped allied compliance build-out and the architecture of subsequent US AI export controls.

The Indiana Economic Development Corporation approved up to USD 18.3 million in EDGE (Economic Development for a Growing Economy) payroll-based tax credits for Amazon Data Services Inc., tied to Amazon Web Services' USD 11 billion data center campus at the Indiana Enterprise Center in New Carlisle, St. Joseph County. The credit was one component of a larger state incentive package announced by Governor Eric Holcomb on 2024-04-25, which also included up to USD 55 million in Hoosier Business Investment tax credits, up to USD 20 million in redevelopment tax credits, up to USD 5 million in training grants, a USD 7 million road-infrastructure contribution, and a 50-year state sales-tax exemption on data center equipment. IEDC records cite an incentive-agreement effective date of 2023-09-01. The project committed to creating at least 1,000 new jobs.

The Indiana Economic Development Corporation approved up to USD 55 million in Hoosier Business Investment (HBI) tax credits for Amazon Data Services Inc., tied to Amazon Web Services' USD 11 billion data center campus at the Indiana Enterprise Center in New Carlisle, St. Joseph County. This is the largest single instrument in the five-part state incentive package Governor Eric Holcomb announced on 2024-04-25, which also included up to USD 18.3 million in EDGE payroll tax credits, up to USD 20 million in redevelopment tax credits, up to USD 5 million in training grants, a USD 7 million road-infrastructure contribution, and a 50-year state sales-tax exemption on data center equipment. IEDC describes all incentives as performance-based, claimable only once the underlying investment and job-creation commitments are verified. IEDC records cite an incentive-agreement effective date of 2023-09-01.

The Indiana Economic Development Corporation approved up to USD 20 million in redevelopment tax credits for Amazon Data Services Inc., tied to Amazon Web Services' USD 11 billion data center campus at the Indiana Enterprise Center in New Carlisle, St. Joseph County. This is the third of five distinct incentive instruments in the state package Governor Eric Holcomb announced on 2024-04-25, alongside up to USD 18.3 million in EDGE payroll tax credits, up to USD 55 million in Hoosier Business Investment tax credits, up to USD 5 million in training grants, a USD 7 million road-infrastructure contribution, and a 50-year state sales-tax exemption on data center equipment. IEDC records cite an incentive-agreement effective date of 2023-09-01.