Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2662 actions· ✨ 89 recent

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.

Regulation (EU) 2026/261 of the European Parliament and of the Council (adopted 26 January 2026, in force 3 February 2026) sets a legally binding stepwise ban on imports of Russian-origin natural gas — both liquefied (LNG) and pipeline. Russian LNG under short-term contracts signed before 17 June 2025 is prohibited from 25 April 2026; long-term LNG contracts from 1 January 2027. Russian pipeline gas under short-term contracts is prohibited from 17 June 2026; long-term pipeline gas from 30 September 2027 (latest 1 November 2027 if EU storage targets remain on track). The regulation operates outside the Russia-sanctions architecture (Article 215 TFEU) as a REPowerEU internal-market instrument, with narrow operational-amendment carve- outs and no provision for volume increases.

Presidential Decree No. 693 of 30 September 2025 ("On certain particularities of the sale of property held in federal ownership"), signed by Vladimir Putin and entered into force on the day of its official publication, creates an accelerated pathway for disposing of federally-owned property in cases determined by a separate decision of the President, where the goal is to ensure the Russian Federation's defence capability and security. Market valuation and the appraisal report must be completed within 10 business days of signing the appraisal contract; PSB Bank JSC (formerly Promsvyazbank, the state-controlled defence-procurement bank) is designated as the sale-organising agent and seller-on-behalf-of-the-state. The Decree also authorises the President to set special features of how Russian legislation on privatisation, joint-stock companies, limited-liability companies, the securities market, banks and competition protection applies to such sales. Expressly framed as a counter-measure to "unfriendly" actions by the United States and its allies; structurally the disposal-mechanism complement to the foreign-asset external- administration and seizure decrees (95/322/520/442) — the fast-track liquidation channel that converts seized or nationalised assets into state-budget cash for defence purposes.

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.

BIS (acting through its Office of Information and Communications Technology and Services, OICTS) published a final rule under Executive Order 13873's ICTS authority prohibiting certain connected-vehicle (CV) transactions involving hardware and software designed, developed, manufactured, or supplied by persons owned by, controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China or the Russian Federation. The rule reaches the Vehicle Connectivity System (VCS — hardware/software enabling external RF connectivity above 450 MHz) and the Automated Driving System (ADS) software stack. Effective 17 March 2025, with phased prohibitions: import/sale of CVs incorporating covered software prohibited from model year 2027; import of covered VCS hardware prohibited from model year 2030 (or 1 January 2029 for hardware not associated with a model year). Importers and connected-vehicle manufacturers must file annual Declarations of Conformity.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued a final rule amending three sanctions programs. The rule adds a new general license at 31 CFR § 525.512 to the Burma Sanctions Regulations authorizing the provision of agricultural commodities, medicine, medical devices, replacement parts and components for medical devices, and software updates for medical devices to individuals whose property and interests in property are blocked. It also updates the authorities section of the Burma Sanctions Regulations to reflect recent legislation, replaces "the Office of Foreign Assets Control" / "the Director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control" with the acronym "OFAC" in three sections of the Sudan Stabilization Sanctions Regulations, and corrects a cross-reference in the Ukraine-/Russia- Related Sanctions Regulations. The rule is effective on publication.

Regulation (EU) 2023/1115, adopted 31 May 2023 and in force 29 June 2023, requires all EU operators and traders placing seven in-scope commodities and their derived products on the EU market — or exporting them from the EU — to file due-diligence statements certifying that goods are deforestation-free (no land cleared after 31 December 2020) and produced in compliance with the relevant legislation of the country of origin. A Commission-administered risk-classification system assigns producer countries to low, standard, or high-risk tiers with differentiated due-diligence burdens. Application was subsequently postponed twice: to 30 December 2026 for large operators (Reg (EU) 2024/3234 and Reg (EU) 2025/2650).

The US Department of Defense published a final rule (DFARS Case 2020-D007) in the Federal Register on 25 August 2022, effective the same day, amending the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement to implement section 849 of the FY2020 National Defense Authorization Act. The rule prohibits DoD's acquisition of tantalum metals and alloys melted or produced in North Korea, China, Russia or Iran, and of any end item manufactured in one of those countries that contains such tantalum.

Russian Government Resolution No. 506 of 29 March 2022, signed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and effective 30 March 2022, authorises the Ministry of Industry and Trade (Minpromtorg) to designate categories of goods exempt from articles 1252(4), 1359(6) and 1487 of the Russian Civil Code on national/regional exhaustion of trademark and other intellectual- property rights. Followed by Minpromtorg Order No. 1532 of 19 April 2022 publishing an initial list of 55 goods categories and named brands — including pharmaceuticals, electronics, automotive parts, mineral fuels, industrial chemicals, paper, textiles, base metals, and consumer goods — for which parallel (grey-market) imports without IP-holder consent are legalised. Designed as a sanctions-circumvention and supply-substitution instrument after the Western corporate exodus of March 2022; extended annually and most recently re-authorised through 31 December 2026.