Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2663 actions· ✨ 89 recent

On 12 February 2026, Ambassador Jamieson Greer of the Office of the United States Trade Representative oversaw the signing of the US-Taiwan Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) in Washington, DC. The instrument was signed under the auspices of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States (TECRO). Headline terms: (i) US IEEPA reciprocal-tariff rate on Taiwan reduced from 20% to 15% and Section 232 auto-parts/timber/lumber rate cut from 25% to 15%; (ii) Taiwan eliminates or reduces 99% of its tariff barriers on US goods, most immediately and the remainder phased over three years; (iii) Taiwan side commits ~USD 85bn in directed purchases through 2029 (USD 44.4bn LNG/crude, USD 15.2bn civil aircraft and engines, USD 25.2bn power equipment); (iv) sectoral chapters covering tariffs, non-tariff barriers, digital trade, economic security, and high-tech supply-chain resilience. Operationally linked to the 15 January 2026 AIT-TECRO Memorandum of Understanding on investment, under which Taiwan pledges USD 250bn in direct Taiwanese-enterprise investment in the US plus USD 250bn in Taiwan-government credit guarantees (USD 500bn total) to fund US-side industrial parks/clusters in advanced semiconductors, energy, and AI manufacturing. Entry into force is conditional on Taiwan's Legislative Yuan completing its review.

Taiwan's Legislative Yuan passed the Artificial Intelligence Basic Act (人工智慧基本法) on third reading on 23 December 2025, and President Lai Ching-te promulgated the 20-article statute on 14 January 2026, bringing it into force immediately. The Act designates the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) as the central AI-policy competent authority and codifies seven governance principles — sustainability and well-being, human autonomy, privacy protection and data governance, cybersecurity and safety, transparency and explainability, fairness and non-discrimination, and accountability — that apply to all public-sector AI procurement and high-risk sectoral applications. The statute establishes a statutory foundation for the Taiwan AI Action Plan 2.0, mandates an Executive Yuan National AI Strategy Committee, and provides authority for sector-specific implementing regulations by FSC, NCC, MOHW, and MOTC across finance, telecoms, medical, and autonomous-vehicle AI within a two-year window. As the first national AI governance statute in the Greater China region and the third globally after the EU AI Act and South Korea's AI Basic Act, it frames regulatory expectations for the companies at the heart of the global AI hardware supply chain — TSMC, NVIDIA ODM partners, and advanced-packaging incumbents — that are headquartered or operate substantially in Taiwan.

On 15 October 2025 the German Federal Cabinet adopted the Microelectronics Strategy of the Federal Government, jointly presented by the Federal Ministry for Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR) and the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWE). The strategy is the first comprehensive cabinet-adopted German microelectronics policy framework in over a decade and operationalises Germany's contribution to the European Chips Act envelope. It is organised around three pillars — Research, Skilled Labour and Production — and creates a "Chips Office" to coordinate stakeholder interaction and implementation. It establishes a competence centre for chip design and a flagship "supercomputer in the car" project, and is framed as a key implementation instrument under the High-Tech Agenda Germany (HTAD) and as Germany's contribution to the September 29 2025 Semicon Declaration signed by all 27 EU member states calling for a revised EU Chips Act II.

On 18 September 2025 the Bundestag adopted the Gesetz zur Errichtung eines Sondervermögens "Infrastruktur und Klimaneutralität" (SVIKG), authorising up to EUR 500 bn of additional federal borrowing over a twelve-year horizon outside the constitutional debt brake, on the basis of the new Article 143h Grundgesetz inserted by the March 2025 constitutional amendment. The envelope splits into up to EUR 100 bn for Länder and municipal infrastructure (channelled via the companion Länder- und Kommunal-Infrastrukturfinanzierungsgesetz, LuKIFG, passed 9 October 2025), EUR 100 bn transferred to the Klima- und Trans- formationsfonds (KTF) in annual instalments through 2034, and up to EUR 300 bn for additional federal investments in transport, energy/ heat, hospital, education, digitalisation, civil protection and R&D infrastructure. Investments are eligible retroactively from 1 January 2025 and may be approved through 31 December 2036; loan repayment begins no later than 1 January 2044. SVIKG is the largest single industrial-finance instrument launched by an EU member state in the post-2022 industrial-policy cycle.

H.R.1, the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" (Public Law 119-21), was signed into law by President Trump on 4 July 2025. The budget-reconciliation statute is the single largest reversal of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) industrial-policy framework: it accelerates the termination of IRA-era clean- energy tax credits and overlays a new "Foreign Entity of Concern" (FEOC) / "Prohibited Foreign Entity" (PFE) regime on the credits that survive. The §25E used-EV credit, the §30D new clean-vehicle credit, the §45W commercial clean-vehicle credit, and the §30C alternative-fuel-refueling-property credit terminate for vehicles or property placed in service after 30 September 2025. The §25C energy-efficient home improvement credit and the §25D residential clean-energy credit terminate for property placed in service after 31 December 2025. The §45Y clean-electricity production credit and §48E clean-electricity investment credit are eliminated for wind and solar facilities placed in service after 31 December 2027, with a safe harbour for projects whose construction begins on or before 4 July 2026. From 1 January 2026, projects beginning construction must satisfy "material assistance" thresholds limiting the share of components, subcomponents and critical minerals sourced from prohibited foreign entities (PRC, Russia, Iran, DPRK and entities controlled by them). For §45Y/§48E facilities the threshold starts at 40% non-PFE content in 2026 and steps up by 5 percentage points per year through 2030; for §45X advanced manufacturing PTC the analogous schedule begins at 50% in 2026 and rises through the decade. CBO scored the package's energy-credit terminations as generating roughly USD 280bn of revenue (gross), of which USD 77.4bn from §25D termination, USD 21.2bn from §25C, USD 77.8bn from §30D, USD 104.5bn from §45W, and USD 2bn from §30C, partially offsetting the bill's other tax cuts. The bill simultaneously re-authorises and broadens the §48D advanced manufacturing investment tax credit for semiconductor fabs, raising the credit rate from 25% to 35% for property placed in service after 31 December 2025 (preserving the CHIPS Act-aligned semiconductor leg of the IRA-era stack). The OBBBA therefore reshapes the IRA from a broad-based clean-energy + EV + manufacturing pull-through into a narrower, China-decoupling industrial policy concentrated on semiconductors and (residually) §45X battery / critical- mineral processing.

The Legislative Yuan of Taiwan (ROC) passed amendments to Article 22 of the Statute for Industrial Innovation (產業創新條例) and added a new Article 67-3 on third reading on 18 April 2025, promulgated by Presidential Decree on 7 May 2025. The package establishes for the first time a Taiwanese OUTBOUND-investment screening regime under the Statute: outbound investments by Taiwanese entities meeting the amount threshold (NTD 1.5bn, or lower as determined) OR involving designated countries/regions OR specific industries or technologies must obtain prior approval from the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) before implementation. The competent authority may deny approval (in whole or in part) or impose conditional approval where particular circumstances are identified — including risks to national security, harm to economic development or supply-chain resilience, conflict with international treaties, or violation of labour-standards law. The new Article 67-3 establishes enforcement penalties ranging from NTD 50,000 to NTD 1,000,000 for initial non-compliance violations and NTD 500,000 to NTD 10,000,000 per violation for failure to comply with conditions, restrictions, or undertakings imposed by MOEA under Article 22 Paragraph 3. Effective dates of implementing provisions are to be determined by Executive Yuan secondary legislation; the package is structurally novel for Taiwan — the first horizontal outbound-investment-security instrument and the structural parallel to the US Treasury Final Rule on Outbound Investment in Countries of Concern (28 October 2024 / effective 2 January 2025), the EU Commission Recommendation 2025/63, and Korea's MOTIE NCT regime.

METI committed up to 732 billion yen (~US$4.86 billion) in direct subsidies for Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing K.K. (JASM) to build a second wafer fab adjacent to the first JASM facility in Kikuyo, Kumamoto Prefecture. Confirmed by METI Minister Ken Saito at the Fab 1 opening ceremony on 24 February 2024, two weeks after TSMC, Sony Semiconductor Solutions, Denso, and Toyota jointly announced the Fab 2 expansion (6 February 2024). Fab 2 will produce 6/7nm and 40nm logic for automotive, industrial, consumer, and HPC end-markets, with combined Fab 1 + Fab 2 capacity exceeding 100,000 12-inch wafers per month. Construction targets year-end 2024; operations target year-end 2027. Combined with the 476 billion yen Fab 1 grant, total JASM subsidies reach ~1.208 trillion yen, the largest single direct manufacturing subsidy in Japanese history. METI conditions require >=10 years of post-startup production and >=50% Japanese-domestic procurement of silicon wafers, materials, and components.

Ireland's Screening of Third Country Transactions Act 2023 (Act No. 28 of 2023), signed into law on 31 October 2023 and commenced on 6 January 2025 via S.I. No. 651 of 2024, establishes Ireland's first-ever mandatory inbound FDI screening regime. The Act empowers the Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment to assess, condition, or prohibit transactions by third-country investors (non-EU/EEA/Switzerland) exceeding a EUR 2 million cumulative threshold in targets operating across critical infrastructure, critical technologies, dual-use items, supply of critical inputs, sensitive personal data, and media freedom. A 90-day standstill period applies during Ministerial determination, with criminal sanctions and transaction-voiding powers available for non-compliance.

On 9 August 2023 the German Federal Cabinet adopted the government draft Wirtschaftsplan 2024 of the Climate and Transformation Fund (Klima- und Transformationsfonds, KTF) and the accompanying 2024–2027 financial plan. The plan envisaged ca. EUR 211.8 bn of programme spending across 2024–2027 (EUR 57.6 bn in 2024 alone), funded by national and European emissions-trading revenues plus federal grants, with major lines for semiconductor production (~EUR 4.0 bn in 2024), hydrogen industry build-out (~EUR 3.8 bn), building renovation (~EUR 18.9 bn), EEG renewables support (~EUR 12.6 bn) and electric mobility. The KTF is the principal German federal vehicle for co-financing the EU Chips Act state-aid envelope, IPCEI Hydrogen, decarbonisation contracts (Klimaschutzverträge) and other net-zero-aligned industrial-policy subsidies.

Effective 17 August 2020 (published in the Federal Register 20 August 2020, Vol. 85 No. 162, FR Doc 2020-18213), BIS implemented three simultaneous measures targeting Huawei's global supply chain. First, 38 non-U.S. affiliates of Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. were added to the Entity List with the most restrictive license review policy (presumption of denial) and designated under footnote 1, extending the Huawei-specific Foreign-Produced Direct Product Rule (FDPR) to their operations. Second, the Temporary General License (TGL), which since May 2019 had authorized limited ongoing transactions with Huawei (network maintenance, software updates, standards participation), was allowed to expire on 13 August 2020 and replaced with a narrower authorization. Third, BIS expanded the scope of the Huawei FDPR (General Prohibition Three) to cover foreign-produced items when a footnote 1 entity is a party to any transaction or when the item will be used in the production or development of products for any footnote 1 entity, closing the design-house loophole that had allowed TSMC to supply HiSilicon/Kirin chips as long as Huawei was not the direct importer.