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

On 4 June 2026 USTR published a formal Notice of Determination in the Federal Register (doc 2026-11158, docket USTR-2025-0043) concluding that Brazil's acts, policies, and practices in six areas — digital trade and electronic payment services, unfair preferential tariffs, anti-corruption enforcement, IP protection, ethanol market access, and illegal deforestation — are unreasonable and burden US commerce. Simultaneously, USTR proposed a 25% ad valorem tariff on all Brazilian-origin goods, subject to ~1,600 HTS subheading exclusions including approximately 430 civil-aircraft lines. A public hearing is scheduled for 6 July 2026 and USTR faces a statutory deadline of 15 July 2026 to finalise any responsive action; the tariff has not yet taken effect.

Peru's executive branch issued Decreto Supremo N° 006-2026-EM (published in El Peruano, 29 May 2026), formally recognising uranium and lithium as critical and strategic minerals of growing international relevance on the basis of their role in energy transition, electromobility, clean energy storage, and smart-city development. The decree simultaneously declares the inaugural International Forum "Uranium and Lithium: Pillars of Energy Leadership for Mining, Technological and Smart City Development in Peru and the World" (7–8 July 2026, Lima) to be of national importance, mandating MINEM and the Ministry of Housing, Construction and Sanitation (MVCS) to jointly organise the event. The focal resource zone is the Macusani Plateau in Puno (estimated 4.6 Mt LCE lithium resources plus uranium deposits), home to American Lithium Corp's Falchani and Macusani projects.

The Secretaría de Economía (SE), through its Unidad de Prácticas Comerciales Internacionales (UPCI), published a Resolución de Inicio in the Diario Oficial de la Federación on 21 May 2026, formally initiating an antidumping investigation into imports of self-adhesive plastic tapes (cintas plásticas autoadhesivas — BOPP/polypropylene backing with acrylic, rubber, or hot-melt adhesive, in rolls 20 cm wide or less, TIGIE 3919.10.01) originating from the People's Republic of China. The investigation follows a petition filed 16 December 2025 by Industrias Tuk S.A. de C.V. and Navi Lux S.A. de C.V., two Mexican domestic converters that alleged Chinese imports entered Mexico under price-discrimination conditions during the investigation period October 2024-September 2025, materially injuring the Mexican packaging-tape industry. The resolution entered into force on 22 May 2026 (the day following DOF publication).

The Secretaría de Economía (SE), through its Unidad de Prácticas Comerciales Internacionales (UPCI), published a Resolución de Inicio in the Diario Oficial de la Federación on 21 May 2026, formally initiating an antidumping investigation into imports of mirror glass (vidrio de espejo — silvered, aluminum-backed, copper-free mirrors) originating from the People's Republic of China, classified under TIGIE tariff heading 7009.91.99 (NICO 00). The investigation follows a petition filed 30 January 2026 by Vidrio Plano de México S.A. de C.V. (Vitro) and Productora y Distribuidora de Espejos S.A. de C.V. (Prodiesa), alleging Chinese imports surged during October 2024–September 2025 under price-discrimination conditions that materially injured the Mexican domestic industry. Interested parties have 23 working days from publication (or 5 days after direct notification for Chinese exporters and the Chinese government) to submit responses; the initial deadline is 30 June 2026.

The European Commission (DG COMP) approved on 20 May 2026 two German State aid measures under the European Chips Act first-pillar 'first-of-a-kind' framework and Article 107(3)(c) TFEU, totalling €288 million. A €222 million grant supports Carl Zeiss SMT GmbH's HNA@SCALE project in Oberkochen (Baden-Württemberg) to industrialise the next generation of High-NA EUV optical columns — the lithography-optic sub-systems integrated by ASML into its High-NA EUV scanners and critical to 2nm-and-below node manufacturing globally. A separate €66 million grant supports Zadient Materials Europe GmbH's SiC-Pro project in Bitterfeld (Saxony-Anhalt) to construct a first-of-a-kind ultra-pure silicon carbide (SiC) source-material manufacturing facility, addressing upstream SiC supply-chain dependence on China (which produces ~80% of global SiC). Both facilities carry cross-border spillover commitments under Chips Act pillar 1.

On 2026-01-26 the US Department of Commerce initiated countervailing duty (anti-subsidy) investigations covering van-type trailers and subassemblies thereof from Canada, China, and Mexico, companion to the antidumping investigation covering the same product and countries. On 2026-06-05 Commerce published preliminary affirmative CVD determinations: China received an 82.37% subsidy rate for CIMC Baowell Industries/Qingdao CIMC Reefer Trailer and all other exporters, and a 128.78% adverse-inference rate for non-responsive companies; Mexico received rates of 1.90-1.95% for cooperating respondents (Hyundai de Mexico, Utility Trailer Manufacturing de México) and a 62.67% adverse-inference rate for five non-responsive companies. The Canada CVD investigation was terminated on 2026-05-27 after the petitioner withdrew that portion of the petition. Cash deposits at the preliminary rates began on Federal Register publication; final CVD determinations are scheduled for 2026-08-24 (China) and 2026-10-13 (Mexico).

The European Commission initiated an anti-dumping investigation on 19 December 2025 (Case AD747, notice published in OJ C/2025/6744) into imports of sodium benzoate (CN code ex 2916 31 00, CUS 0023120-9, CAS 532-32-1) originating in China, following a complaint from Lanxess Chemical B.V. filed on 10 November 2025. The Commission first made imports subject to customs registration via Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/366 of 19 February 2026. On 27 July 2026 the Commission adopted Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/1854, published 28 July 2026, imposing provisional antidumping duties ranging from 57.6% to 116.4% by exporter. The measure remains provisional pending the investigation's final outcome.

The European Commission initiated an anti-dumping investigation on 19 December 2025 (Case AD748, notice published in OJ C/2025/6741) into imports of benzyl alcohol (CN code 2906 21 00, CAS 100-51-6) originating in China, following a complaint from EU producers LANXESS Deutschland GmbH, LANXESS Chemical B.V. and Vynova Advanced Organics Maastricht B.V. The Commission first made imports subject to customs registration via Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/362 of 17 February 2026, preserving the option to apply duties retroactively. On 28-29 July 2026 the Commission published a provisional antidumping duty on Chinese benzyl alcohol, reported by trade press to be in the 52.6%-71.2% range pending independent confirmation of the exact implementing regulation and per-exporter rates. The measure remains provisional pending the investigation's final outcome, expected within the statutory deadline.

The European Investment Fund (EIF), part of the EIB Group, invested EUR 20 million (~USD 23.1 million) on 6 November 2025 in TIN Capital's European Cyber Tech Fund V, a growth-equity vehicle backing European cybersecurity scale-ups. EIF's participation is supported under the European Commission's InvestEU programme; alongside Invest-NL and private investors, the fund closed at over EUR 80 million. The EIF frames the investment as strengthening Europe's digital security and autonomy amid incoming EU cybersecurity regulation (NIS2, the Cybersecurity Act, DORA). Global Trade Alert separately logs the transaction as a "red"-flagged state-linked financial investment-support intervention.

The U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated the Bhardwaj Human Smuggling Organization (Bhardwaj HSO), a Cancun, Mexico-based transnational criminal organization run by dual Indian-Mexican national Vikrant Bhardwaj, under Executive Order 13581 (as amended by EO 13863). The action names 21 designees in total — the organization, 4 individuals (including Bhardwaj's wife and a former Cancun airport police officer who provided access), and 16 front companies spanning Mexico, India and the UAE across real estate, construction, retail/hospitality, and tourism/transport sectors used to launder smuggling proceeds. The designation was coordinated with Homeland Security Investigations, the DEA, and Mexico's financial intelligence unit (UIF), and blocks all U.S. property and interests of the designees plus any entity 50%-or-more owned by them.

On 18 September 2025 Brazil's federal government published Medida Provisória (Provisional Measure) 1318/2025, creating REDATA — the Special Taxation Regime for Datacenter Services — alongside a parallel IT-export regime (REPES). REDATA zeroes federal taxes on servers, storage, networking, cooling and other datacenter capital equipment for qualifying operators from 1 January 2026, conditioned on 100% renewable/zero-carbon energy sourcing, a 2% of investment R&D-in-Brazil commitment, and preferential use of Brazilian- manufactured components. The Finance Ministry projects R$5.2 billion in forgone-tax incentives in 2026 alone, with potential to unlock up to R$2 trillion in private datacenter investment over ten years. REDATA is framed as implementing the National Datacenter Policy (PNDC) under the Nova Indústria Brasil industrial-policy umbrella.

Presidential Decree No. 593 of 25 August 2025 amends the standing schedule of foreign-owned Russian assets under "temporary management" (established by Decree No. 302 of 25 April 2023), adding as item 44 the 314,949 thousand ordinary shares of JSC Chelyabenergoremont held by Fortum Holding B.V. (the Dutch holding vehicle of Finnish state-controlled utility Fortum), transferring control to Rosimushchestvo (Federal Agency for State Property Management). Fortum was the sole shareholder, so the decree effectively nationalises the entire company — a 70-year-old turbine and boiler-equipment maintenance and repair service provider for power plants, with reported 2023 revenue of RUB 2.35bn. The decree entered into force on its date of official publication and is one of a running series of company-specific amendments to Decree 302 following Fortum's 2022-23 exit announcement and the earlier seizure of its main generation subsidiary Fortum Russia B.V. (renamed Fora Energy) and of Unipro.

FinCEN published an order amending the three June 25, 2025 special-measure orders (as previously amended by the July 11, 2025 order, FR doc 2025-12973) prohibiting US covered financial institutions from transmitting funds to or from CIBanco S.A., Intercam Banco S.A., and Vector Casa de Bolsa, S.A. de C.V. — three Mexican institutions designated of primary money-laundering concern in connection with illicit-opioid trafficking under Section 2313a of the Fiscal Year 2024 NDAA. The amendment extends the effective date of all three prohibitions from September 4, 2025 to October 20, 2025, granting US covered institutions an additional ~46 days to wind down correspondent exposures. The underlying primary-money-laundering-concern findings remain intact — only the implementation deadline shifts.

On 8 August 2025, Ukraine's President signed Decree No. 595/2025, enacting an NSDC decision "On the Application of Personal Special Economic and Other Restrictive Measures (Sanctions)" against Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom and its international corporate network. Sanctions were applied to 18 individuals and 17 legal entities identified as involved in attempts to integrate the occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant into Russia's grid, participation in the seizure of the Chornobyl NPP, production and servicing of dual-use nuclear equipment, and export of enriched uranium through Rosatom subsidiaries registered in Switzerland, Cyprus, the Netherlands, and Finland. Named entities include Uranium One Holding N.V. (Netherlands), Rosatom Finance Ltd (Cyprus), and JSC Kirov-Energomash (Russia).

On 15 July 2025 USTR Ambassador Jamieson Greer initiated a Section 301 investigation into six categories of Brazilian "acts, policies, and practices" alleged to be unreasonable or discriminatory and to burden US commerce: (1) digital trade and electronic payment services (specifically the Banco Central do Brasil's operation of the Pix instant-payments system, alleged to disadvantage US payment providers); (2) unfair, preferential tariffs (Brazil's preferential tariff treatment for selected partners that excludes US exports); (3) anti-corruption enforcement (alleged interference with US-linked enforcement matters); (4) intellectual property protection (insufficient enforcement against piracy and counterfeiting); (5) ethanol market access (Brazil's reversal of near-zero ethanol tariffs imposed during the 2017-2024 window); and (6) illegal deforestation (the trade-distorting effect of unenforced environmental rules on Brazilian commodity exports). The Federal Register notice (USTR-2025-0043, FR doc 2025-13498) published on 18 July 2025 set written-comment and hearing-request deadlines for 18 August 2025 and a public hearing for 3 September 2025 at the US International Trade Commission. A determination on whether Brazil's practices are actionable, and what remedies (including retaliatory tariffs, withdrawal of trade concessions, or formal WTO action) USTR will pursue, is statutorily due within 12 months of initiation — i.e. by 15 July 2026.

FinCEN published an order amending the three June 25, 2025 special-measure orders (FR docs 2025-11991, 2025-11993, 2025-11990; 90 FR 27770 et seq.) prohibiting US covered financial institutions from transmitting funds to or from CIBanco S.A., Intercam Banco S.A., and Vector Casa de Bolsa, S.A. de C.V. — three Mexican institutions designated of primary money-laundering concern in connection with illicit-opioid trafficking under Section 2313a of the Fiscal Year 2024 NDAA. This first extension shifts the effective date of all three prohibitions from July 21, 2025 to September 4, 2025 (a 45-day delay), giving US covered institutions additional time to wind down correspondent exposures. The underlying primary-money-laundering- concern findings remain unchanged — only the implementation deadline shifts.

On 25 June 2025, FinCEN issued three coordinated orders identifying CIBanco S.A., Intercam Banco S.A., and Vector Casa de Bolsa, S.A. de C.V. as foreign financial institutions of primary money-laundering concern in connection with illicit opioid trafficking, and prohibiting US covered financial institutions from engaging in certain transmittals of funds (including convertible virtual currency transmittals) to or from those three institutions or any account or CVC address administered on their behalf. The orders were published in the Federal Register on 30 June 2025 (FR docs 2025-11991 Vector, 2025-11993 CIBanco, 2025-11990 Intercam) with an original effective date of 21 July 2025. These are the first-ever orders issued under Section 2313a of the Fiscal Year 2024 NDAA (added by the FEND Off Fentanyl Act and Fentanyl Sanctions Act), and target Mexican counterparties tied by FinCEN to the Beltran-Leyva Cartel, Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), and the Gulf Cartel.

On 20 June 2025, the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control designated one individual, eight entities, and one vessel pursuant to Executive Order 13382 (WMD proliferators) for procuring and transshipping sensitive machinery to Iran's Rayan Roshd Afzar Company (RRA), a producer of UAV components and aerospace software for the IRGC. The vessel SHUN KAI XING, owned by Hong Kong-based Unico Shipping Co Ltd and chartered by Singapore-based V-Shipping Pte Ltd, was carrying the machinery for RRA and an affiliated firm when its cargo was inspected; the designated network — including China-based Shenzhen Xinxin Shipping, Dongguan Zanyin Machinery and Equipment, Athena Shipping, shipmaster Zhang Yanbing, and Turkiye-based Edisa Dis Ticaret Limited Sirketi — then falsified bills of lading to obscure the Iran-bound, RRA-consigned cargo after the inspection.

On 1 May 2025 the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), jointly with FinCEN, designated two Mexican nationals — Oscar Guillermo Juraidini Silva and J. Refugio Ruiz Villagomez — and nine entities they own or control, pursuant to Executive Order 14059 (illicit drug trade) and E.O. 13224 (as amended), for facilitating a Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG) fuel-theft and cross-border smuggling scheme ("huachicol fiscal") that falsifies customs documentation to evade Mexico's IEPS fuel-import tax. FinCEN concurrently issued a supplemental alert on fuel-smuggling and fiscal fuel-theft red flags. All property and interests in property of the designees within US jurisdiction are blocked, and US persons are generally barred from transacting with them.

On 23 April 2025 CMOC Group (HKG:3993) announced the acquisition of TSXV-listed Lumina Gold Corp — 100% owner of the Cangrejos (Los Cangrejos) gold-copper project in El Oro Province, southwestern Ecuador — via a court-sanctioned plan of arrangement at C$1.27/share (C$581M / ~USD 420M); the transaction closed on 24 June 2025 through a Singapore subsidiary, making Cangrejos Ecuador's largest primary gold deposit under full Chinese operational control. On 27 April 2026 CMOC's Ecuadorian subsidiary ODIN Mining del Ecuador signed a 26-year exploitation contract with Ecuador's Ministry of Energy and Mines committing >$1.7B in total investment (~$54M advance royalties, $34M paid on signing); commercial production is targeted for 2028 at ~11.5 t/yr gold (~370,000 oz/yr), making the state-projected total revenues $4.39B over the mine life. The acquisition extends CMOC's critical-mineral portfolio — anchored in DRC cobalt/copper — into Ecuadorian gold and copper, concentrating a globally significant undeveloped gold-copper deposit under Chinese operational control ahead of the competing 2026 Ecuador–US Critical Minerals Bilateral Framework.

President Daniel Noboa signed Executive Decree 435 on 23 October 2024, creating the Comité Nacional de Integridad del Sector Minero (CONIM) as a permanent inter-institutional coordination body chaired by the Secretaría General de Integridad Pública and composed of eight ministries plus SRI and UAFE, with a mandate to develop annual sector-risk assessments, formulate strategic action plans, and coordinate joint operations against illegal mining. The decree also orders ARCOM to update and reopen the Catastro Minero Nacional within six months (deadline 23 April 2025), the first cadastre reopening since the 2018 closure, sequentially executed as: small non-metallic mining (June 2025), metallic mining (September 2025), and all regimes (end 2025). This is the foundational executive instrument anchoring the post-2018 Ecuadorian mining-FDI revival pipeline and an IMF-EFF conditionality item for the 2026 reform cycle.

Loi N°017-2024/ALT, adopted unanimously by Burkina Faso's Assemblée Législative de Transition on 18 July 2024 and promulgated by presidential decree in late August 2024, establishes a mandatory local-content regime for the entire mining sector. Mining operators must prioritise Burkinabè national labour, procure goods and services from national suppliers, and refine or add value to mineral production on national territory; foreign subcontractors must either incorporate a Burkinabè-law entity with capital shares reserved for national investors or form joint ventures with Burkinabè-majority-capital partners. The law is the companion local-content pillar to the simultaneously adopted Code Minier (Loi N°016-2024/ALT) and operationalises the national-participation and value-addition objectives of the Traoré junta's July 2024 dual mining-reform package.