Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2668 actions· ✨ 89 recent

The US Department of Commerce's CHIPS Program Office, invoking authority under the CHIPS and Science Act, signed a non-binding letter of intent on 2026-01-26 to provide USA Rare Earth with up to $277 million in direct federal funding and a $1.3 billion senior secured loan. The funding backs a "mine-to-magnet" vertically integrated supply chain: a rare earth mine at Round Top, Texas (commercial production targeted 2028) and a neodymium-iron-boron magnet and rare-earth-metals manufacturing facility in Stillwater, Oklahoma. In exchange, Commerce receives roughly 16.1 million USAR common shares and warrants for a further 17.6 million shares. The agreements were finalized as definitive on 2026-06-03, unlocking access to up to $1.6 billion combined with the federal award, alongside a separately raised $1.5 billion in private capital.

The US Department of Energy announced $2.7 billion in task-order funding over ten years to rebuild domestic uranium enrichment capacity: $900 million each to American Centrifuge Operating and General Matter to develop high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) enrichment capacity, $900 million to Orano Federal Services to expand low-enriched uranium (LEU) enrichment capacity, and $28 million to Global Laser Enrichment for next-generation enrichment technology. DOE frames the awards as reducing US reliance on foreign — chiefly Russian — enriched uranium supply and securing fuel for the country's 94 commercial reactors and future advanced-reactor deployment, with funds distributed under a milestone-based accountability framework.

The US Department of Commerce awarded Crucible Metals, LLC — a subsidiary of South Korea's Korea Zinc — USD 210 million in direct CHIPS Incentives Program funding to build a smelter and critical-minerals processing facility in Clarksville, Tennessee. The facility, styled "Project Crucible," is an advanced replica of Korea Zinc's Onsan complex and is expected to cost roughly USD 6.6 billion in capital expenditure (USD 7.4 billion in total project financing), targeting first production in 2029. At full scale it is designed to produce 13 critical and strategic minerals — including gallium, germanium, antimony, indium, bismuth, tellurium, cadmium and palladium alongside roughly 300,000 tons/year of zinc, 200,000 tons/year of lead and 35,000+ tons/year of copper. As a condition of the award, Korea Zinc committed to give the US government and US customers priority access to its existing Korean-refined output of 10 critical minerals beginning in 2026, and the project separately secured conditional Department of War (Office of Strategic Capital) loan support and FAST-41 covered-project permitting status.

On 10 December 2025, USDA Secretary Brooke L. Rollins, alongside HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz, launched a USD 700 million Regenerative Pilot Program to lower American farmers' production costs and support adoption of regenerative agriculture practices. USDA is dedicating USD 400 million through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and USD 300 million through the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) to fund FY2026 regenerative-agriculture projects. The program consolidates soil/water/resource conservation planning into a single whole-farm application, framed as part of the administration's "Make America Healthy Again" (MAHA) agenda, and is open to both beginning and advanced producers applying through local NRCS Service Centers by state ranking dates.

On 2025-12-08 President Trump and USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins announced a one-time USD 12 billion Farmer Bridge Payments package for US row-crop and specialty-crop producers, framed as relief for market disruption, elevated input costs, and export losses tied to "years of failed trade and economic policies." Up to USD 11 billion funds the new Farmer Bridge Assistance (FBA) Program covering barley, chickpeas, corn, cotton, lentils, oats, peanuts, peas, rice, sorghum, soybeans, wheat, canola, crambe, flax, mustard, rapeseed, safflower, sesame and sunflower; the remaining USD 1 billion is reserved for specialty crops and sugar. USDA published final per-acre payment rates on 2025-12-31 (e.g. rice USD 132.89/acre, cotton USD 117.35, corn USD 44.36, soybeans USD 30.88, wheat USD 39.35), with payments subject to a USD 900,000 AGI cap and a USD 155,000 per-person/entity payment limit, and disbursement targeted by 2026-02-28.

The US Department of Energy selected the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and Holtec Government Services to receive up to $800 million in combined federal cost-shared funding — $400 million each — to accelerate deployment of advanced light-water small modular reactors (SMRs). TVA's award backs a GE Vernova Hitachi BWRX-300 unit at the Clinch River site in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, targeted to be the nation's first commercial SMR (commercial operation targeted early 2030s), with domestic supply-chain partners Scot Forge, North American Forgemasters, BWX Technologies and Aecon. Holtec's award backs deployment of two SMR-300 units at the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station site in Covert, Michigan. The program is intended to expand US SMR manufacturing capacity and seed follow-on domestic and export supply chains.

On 25 November 2025 the US EPA announced USD 3 billion in new Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF) assistance under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), plus reallocation of a further USD 1.1 billion in previously awarded but unspent state funds, bringing total redirected funding to USD 4.1 billion for state lead service line replacement (LSLR) programmes. Global Trade Alert logs the intervention as a public-procurement-localisation measure because DWSRF/IIJA capital- grant assistance carries standing Build America, Buy America Act (BABA) domestic-content requirements for the iron, steel, and manufactured construction products (pipe, fittings) used in funded replacement work. States that have not obligated or spent funds awarded since FY2023 must submit an implementation plan before accessing new funding.

On 20 November 2025 the US EPA opened the 9th round of Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) lending — USD 6.5 billion in WIFIA financing plus USD 550 million under the State WIFIA (SWIFIA) program, USD 7.05 billion in total newly available capacity — and simultaneously approved five new WIFIA loans totaling USD 711 million across Fort Worth TX (USD 347m), Pflugerville TX (USD 176m), Joliet IL (USD 87m), Ashland OR (USD 73m) and Wilton Manors FL (USD 28m). Global Trade Alert logs each individual loan as a public-procurement-localisation intervention because WIFIA capital assistance carries a standing American Iron and Steel (AIS) domestic-content requirement for iron, steel and manufactured products used in EPA-financed water infrastructure — a structural condition of the WIFIA statute rather than a provision unique to this announcement.

On 20 November 2025 the Federal Transit Administration announced USD 2,027,948,082 in combined FY2025 Grants for Buses and Bus Facilities and FY2025/2026 Low or No Emission (Low-No) Program awards, covering 165 projects across 45 states and the District of Columbia: USD 397.7 million for 62 Bus Facilities projects and USD 1.63 billion for 103 Low-No projects, funding roughly 2,400 replacement buses. Global Trade Alert logs the round as a public-procurement-localisation intervention because both programs carry standing Build America, Buy America Act (BABA) domestic-content requirements — buses and manufactured components funded by the awards must be produced with US-made iron, steel, and manufactured products and final-assembled domestically. FTA formalised the full project list via Federal Register notice on 15 January 2026.

DOE's Loan Programs Office concurrently finalized a conditional loan commitment and financial close on a USD 1 billion interest-bearing loan to Constellation Energy Generation, LLC, funded under the newly created Energy Dominance Financing Program, to help restart the 835 MW Crane Clean Energy Center (formerly Three Mile Island Unit 1) on the Susquehanna River in Londonderry Township, Pennsylvania. The reactor shut down in 2019 for market reasons (not safety) and was never fully decommissioned; restart is pending NRC licensing approval and is expected to power roughly 800,000 Mid-Atlantic homes, supporting domestic manufacturing and AI-datacenter power demand. A Pennsylvania Building & Construction Trades Council economic-impact study cited in the DOE release estimates ~3,400 direct/indirect jobs, over USD 16 billion in state GDP, and more than USD 3 billion in state/federal tax revenue over the project life.

On 3 November 2025 the US Department of Commerce's CHIPS Program Office (administered via NIST) announced a non-binding preliminary letter of intent to take a $50 million equity stake in Vulcan Elements, a North Carolina-based rare-earth magnet producer. The CHIPS and Science Act funding is earmarked for equipment to separate, metallize and manufacture Neodymium Iron Boron (NdFeB) magnets, targeting up to 10,000 metric tonnes of annual domestic production capacity. Commerce framed the investment around NdFeB magnets' role in the semiconductor equipment supply chain (EUV lithography, CVD, etch and pump systems). The equity stake is conditioned on final negotiation and approval and runs alongside a separately-tracked $620 million Department of War Office of Strategic Capital loan to Vulcan Elements and ReElement Technologies announced the same day.

On 3 November 2025 the US Department of War's Office of Strategic Capital (OSC), together with the Department of Commerce, announced a joint conditional loan commitment of $700 million to two domestic rare-earth magnet producers: $620 million to Vulcan Elements and $80 million to ReElement Technologies. The loans fund separation, metallization and finished-magnet manufacturing capacity for Neodymium Iron Boron (NdFeB) magnets, targeting up to 10,000 metric tons of annual domestic magnet production. In exchange, the Department of War receives warrants in both companies. This action covers the OSC loan tranche; a related, separately-tracked action covers the Department of Commerce's parallel $50 million CHIPS Act equity stake in Vulcan Elements.

The Texas Energy Fund (TxEF), administered by the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT), finalized a USD 1.12 billion low-interest (3%) 20-year state loan to Competitive Power Ventures (CPV) to fund 60% of the USD 1.88 billion cost of the CPV Basin Ranch Energy Center, a 1,350 MW combined-cycle natural-gas plant in Ward County (Permian Basin), Texas. The loan term runs 28 October 2025 to 28 October 2045; the plant is expected online in 2029 in the ERCOT West Load Zone and is explicitly framed by the state as capacity to serve West Texas AI/data-center electricity demand. This is the fifth loan finalized under TxEF's In-ERCOT Generation Loan Program and the largest single project financed under it to date, taking cumulative TxEF-backed capacity above 3,100 MW.

DOE's Loan Programs Office closed a USD 1.5 billion loan under the Energy Dominance Financing Program to Wabash Valley Resources, LLC to restart and repurpose a coal-gasification plant (idled since 2016) in West Terre Haute, Indiana, converting it into a coal- and petcoke-fed anhydrous ammonia fertilizer facility with 500,000 metric tons/year capacity. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright framed the loan explicitly as reducing US dependence on foreign fertilizer supply by using domestic coal, positioning the plant to supply cost-competitive nitrogen fertilizer to Corn Belt farmers. Global Trade Alert logs the loan as a state-loan intervention.

The US Department of War announced a USD 43.4 million Defense Production Act (DPA) Title III award to Alaska Range Resources, LLC — a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nova Minerals Limited — to fund the initial phase of an integrated domestic antimony supply chain at the Estelle Gold and Critical Minerals Project, roughly 150 km northwest of Anchorage, Alaska. The award funds extraction, concentration and refining of stibnite ore into military-grade antimony trisulfide, used in munitions primer production and case hardening. It follows China's December 2024 ban on antimony exports to the US and is intended to establish a "full spectrum" domestic antimony mining and refining hub to reduce reliance on Chinese-controlled supply.

On 24 September 2025 the Federal Railroad Administration published in the Federal Register a withdrawal-and-reissue of the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the FY2024-2025 National Railroad Partnership Program / Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail Program for projects off the Northeast Corridor (FSP-National), making up to USD 5,070,784,989 available for competitive intercity passenger-rail capital awards, including roughly USD 2.4bn de-obligated from the California High-Speed Rail project. Global Trade Alert logs the NOFO as a public-procurement-localisation intervention because FRA capital-assistance grants carry standing Build America, Buy America Act (BABA) domestic-content and final-assembly requirements. The reissue also withdrew DEI- and climate-related selection criteria attached to the prior Biden-era version of the NOFO. Applications were due 7 January 2026.

Japan's state-owned Development Bank of Japan (DBJ) announced on 2025-09-18 that it executed "hybrid finance" — a subordinated-debt instrument treated as partly equity by rating agencies — in support of Nippon Steel Corporation's acquisition of United States Steel Corporation. DBJ's participation formed part of a JPY 500 billion (~USD 3.4bn) committed subordinated term-loan facility, syndicated alongside Japan's three megabanks (MUFG, SMFG, Mizuho) and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust, that Nippon Steel closed the same day to repay short-term bridge loans used to fund the consideration for its USD 14.9bn acquisition of US Steel. DBJ extended the financing under its "Specific Investment Operations" (特定投資業務) program, which is reserved for deals it deems to strengthen the international competitiveness of Japanese industry.

On 22 August 2025 Intel and the Trump administration announced that the US government would acquire a 9.9% equity stake in Intel — 433.3 million common shares at $20.47/share, worth $8.9 billion — funded by converting $5.7 billion in remaining, undisbursed CHIPS and Science Act grants and $3.2 billion from the Department of War's Secure Enclave program into equity rather than paying them as grants. Combined with $2.2 billion already disbursed under Intel's CHIPS award, total federal support reaches $11.1 billion. 274.6 million shares transferred to Commerce at closing on 27 August 2025; the remaining 158.7 million sit in escrow pending Secure Enclave disbursement milestones. The government also received a five-year warrant for an additional 5% of Intel shares at $20/share, exercisable only if Intel's ownership of its foundry business falls below 51%.

Korea Trade Insurance Corporation (K-SURE), a Korean government export-credit agency, announced on 4 August 2025 a US$1bn (~KRW 1.4tn) financial guarantee backing LG Chem's construction of a cathode material plant in Clarksville, Montgomery County, Tennessee. The facility is being built in a first phase for roughly KRW 2tn, with 60,000 tons/year of NCMA (nickel-cobalt-manganese- aluminum) cathode capacity — described by K-SURE as the largest cathode material production line in the United States, sufficient for around 600,000 electric vehicles. K-SURE stated this is the first US investment guarantee issued following the Korea-US tariff negotiation, under which Seoul agreed to channel a large bilateral investment package into the United States; the guarantee lets LG Chem access lower-cost, longer-tenor financing from global banks for the project.

On 9 July 2025 USDA Secretary Brooke L. Rollins announced the Supplemental Disaster Relief Program (SDRP), making USD 16 billion in congressionally mandated assistance available to producers who suffered eligible crop losses from qualifying natural disasters in 2023 and 2024. The Farm Service Agency is delivering the assistance in two stages: Stage One (opened 10 July 2025) covers producers who already received crop insurance or Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program payments for the affected years; Stage Two, covering shallow and uninsured losses, was slated to begin in early fall 2025. Eligible disasters include wildfires, hurricanes, floods, derechos, excessive heat, tornadoes, winter storms, freeze events, smoke exposure, excessive moisture, and qualifying drought, across row crops, specialty crops, and perennial crops.

The Inflation Reduction Act (Public Law 117-169), signed by President Biden on 16 August 2022, contains the largest single package of clean-energy and clean-manufacturing subsidies in US history — Congressional Budget Office scored the energy and climate provisions at $369B over 10 years, with subsequent Treasury / academic estimates reaching $800B-$1.2T as uptake exceeded baseline. Core mechanisms include the Section 30D Clean Vehicle credit ($7,500 per qualifying EV), the Section 45X Advanced Manufacturing Production Credit (per-unit credits for domestically-produced battery cells, modules, electrodes, and critical-mineral processing), the Section 48E Clean Electricity Investment Credit, and the Section 45V Clean Hydrogen Production Credit. Critically, the law contains Foreign Entity of Concern (FEOC) provisions barring credit eligibility for vehicles or components linked to entities controlled by China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea.

The CHIPS and Science Act (Public Law 117-167), signed into law by President Biden on 9 August 2022, appropriated $52.7 billion in direct semiconductor industry support: $39B in manufacturing incentives administered by the Commerce Department, $13.2B for R&D and workforce, and $0.5B for legacy-chip and supply-chain programs. It also created an Advanced Manufacturing Investment Credit (Section 48D) — a 25% refundable investment tax credit on qualified semiconductor manufacturing property. The law included a "guardrails" clause prohibiting recipients from expanding advanced-node capacity in countries of concern (most prominently China) for 10 years following award.

On 1 February 2021, the U.S. Department of Defense announced a USD 30.4 million Defense Production Act Title III technology investment agreement with Lynas USA LLC, the U.S. subsidiary of Australia's Lynas Rare Earths Ltd, to establish domestic light rare earth element (LREE) separation capacity in Hondo, Texas. DOD framed the award as reducing reliance on China for rare earth oxides used in defense and commercial applications; the department projected that, if the Texas facility and Lynas's Malaysian operations are completed as planned, Lynas would supply roughly 25% of world rare earth oxide demand outside China.