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

On May 1, 2026, the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated China-based independent ("teapot") refinery Hengli Petrochemical (Dalian) Refinery Co., Ltd. — described as China's second-largest teapot — together with approximately 40 shipping firms and vessels operating as part of Iran's shadow fleet. OFAC sanctioned 19 shadow-fleet vessels (crude, LPG, and petrochemical tankers) as blocked property of designated owners or managers. The action was taken under Executive Order 13902 (Iran petroleum and petrochemical sectors) in furtherance of National Security Presidential Memorandum-2 (NSPM-2) of February 4, 2025. Treasury press release SB0472. Concurrent with the designations, OFAC issued Iran-related General License W authorising the wind-down of transactions involving the persons newly blocked on May 1, 2026, and published a structurally novel Iran-related Alert, "Sanctions Risks of Iranian Demands for Strait of Hormuz Passage." The Alert states that payments to the Government of Iran or the IRGC — directly or indirectly — for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz are not authorised for US persons (including US financial institutions) or US-owned/-controlled foreign entities. OFAC also issued new FAQ 1250 to accompany the Alert and GL W. The wave is one of the largest single-day Iran enforcement actions of the Trump 2.0 administration. Treasury characterises it as part of a campaign that has sanctioned over 1,000 Iran-related persons, vessels, and aircraft since February 2025. The Strait of Hormuz Alert is the operational US response to Iranian regulatory threats against the ~20% of global oil and ~25% of global LNG transiting Hormuz, putting tanker owners, P&I clubs, flag states, and oil-buyer compliance teams on direct notice.

On April 24, 2026, the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) added 19 entities and 19 vessels to the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) List under Executive Order 13902 (Iran petroleum and petrochemical sectors), in furtherance of National Security Presidential Memorandum-2 (NSPM-2) of February 4, 2025. The action is the first OFAC designation of a Chinese independent ("teapot") refinery — Hengli Petrochemical (Dalian) Refinery Co., Ltd., described as one of Iran's largest single customers for crude oil and petroleum products, having purchased billions of US dollars' worth since at least 2023 from cargoes brokered by Sepehr Energy Jahan Nama Pars Company (the oil sales arm of Iran's Armed Forces General Staff, controlled by the Ministry of Defense / MODAFL). Co-designations span shipping firms and vessels registered in China, Hong Kong, Panama, Marshall Islands, Liberia, and Vietnam. Concurrent with the designations, OFAC issued Iran-related General License V authorising a 30-day wind-down (through May 24, 2026) of transactions involving Hengli Petrochemical (Dalian) Refinery Co., Ltd. and certain majority-owned entities. Treasury press release SB0472 ("Economic Fury Targets Global Network Fueling Iran's Oil Trade and Shadow Fleet") frames the action as part of the maximum-pressure campaign that has sanctioned over 1,000 Iran-related persons, vessels, and aircraft since February 2025. The April 24 designations directly triggered the first-ever operational use of China's Blocking Rules (MOFCOM Announcement No. 21 of May 2, 2026) and preceded a second OFAC Iran wave on May 1, 2026 (General License W + Strait of Hormuz Sanctions Risk Alert).

Presidential decree signed by President Claudia Sheinbaum and published in the evening edition of the Diario Oficial de la Federación on 23 April 2026, in force 24 April 2026. The decree amends the Tariff of the Ley de los Impuestos Generales de Importación y de Exportación (LIGIE/TIGIE) and the Decreto que establece diversos Programas de Promoción Sectorial (PROSEC), imposing MFN import duties at 5%, 10%, 15%, 25%, 30% or 35% ad valorem on 185 tariff fractions covering chemical products, cosmetics, paper and cardboard, textiles, steel, graphic arts, aluminum manufactures, auto parts, electrical material, bicycles, musical instruments, furniture, wind turbines, and trailers. Goods originating in countries with which Mexico has a free-trade agreement remain eligible for preferential treatment, so practical incidence falls on China and other non-FTA suppliers (Korea, India, Vietnam, Thailand, Brazil, Indonesia, Taiwan, UAE, South Africa). Paired PROSEC modifications add tariff fractions to Article 5 sections I, II.b and XIX (electrical, electronic, automotive and auto-parts industries) at exempt (EX) rates.

On March 20, 2026, OFAC issued Iran-related General License U (GL U), temporarily authorizing the sale, delivery, offloading and — notably, for the first time in decades — importation into the United States of Iranian-origin crude oil and petroleum products, but only for cargo already loaded onto vessels as of 12:01 a.m. EDT that day. The window ran through April 19, 2026, after which the authorization lapsed. The license excluded any transaction touching Cuba, North Korea, or Russian-government-controlled areas of Ukraine, and did not waive any other, non-Iran sanctions program. OFAC formally published GL U (and the separate, entity-specific GL V wind-down license for Hengli Petrochemical) in the Federal Register on June 10, 2026 — a retrospective publication of licenses already issued and, by then, already expired.

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.

On 16 January 2026 the Yunnan Provincial People's Government issued Yunzhengfa [2026] No. 2, a package of 34 policy measures (effective through 2030) to support high-quality development of the Central Yunnan New Area (滇中新区), a national-level new area centred on Kunming. The measures span industrial upgrading, innovation, opening-up and fiscal/land support: transformation of traditional petrochemical and metallurgy industries into "hundred-billion-yuan" clusters, development of semiconductor materials/equipment, new-energy battery materials and non-ferrous/rare-precious-metals manufacturing using Yunnan's mineral and plateau-agriculture resources, and cultivation of low-altitude economy, biomanufacturing and new-materials industries. It also seeks to establish a South/Southeast Asia aircraft-delivery centre and one-stop aviation-maintenance base in the new area.

On 30 December 2025 the General Office of the Shanghai Municipal People's Government issued Hufubangui [2025] No. 20, a three-year action plan (1 January 2026 - 31 December 2028) to support the transformation and upgrading of advanced manufacturing. The plan sets quantitative targets — 100 new manufacturing enterprises with annual output above CNY 1 billion by 2028 (cumulative 600+), 500 new above-designated-size supply-chain enterprises, 100+ new national-level green factories, a robot density of 600 units per 10,000 workers, and 70%+ digital-equipment penetration — across next-generation electronics, intelligent connected new-energy vehicles, high-end equipment, advanced materials, green low-carbon and fashion consumer-goods industries, plus emerging bets on the low-altitude economy, commercial aerospace, embodied intelligence (robotics) and biomanufacturing. It is funded through tiered direct subsidies rather than tax relief: one-off R&D subsidies up to CNY 10 million, equipment/new-materials cost-share up to 30% of contract value (capped at CNY 20 million), technical- transformation loan/leasing interest support up to CNY 20 million cumulative, and 0.8-1.3% interest subsidies on component/material backup-inventory financing.

Decree reforming various tariff fractions of the General Import and Export Duties Tariff (TIGIE), published in the Diario Oficial de la Federación on 29 December 2025 and in force 1 January 2026. The reform, approved by Congress as a statutory amendment to the LIGIE (Chamber of Deputies and Senate, Dec 2025) and signed by President Claudia Sheinbaum, raises MFN import duties to between 5% and 50% ad valorem on 1,463 tariff lines covering more than 20 chapters of the TIGIE, spanning automotive, auto parts, textiles, apparel, footwear, steel, aluminum, plastics, paper, leather, furniture, glass, toys, appliances and cosmetics. The increases apply only to goods originating in countries without a free trade agreement with Mexico — principally China, South Korea, India, Vietnam, Thailand, Brazil, Indonesia, Chinese Taipei, the UAE, and South Africa. The decree formalises at statutory level the September 2024 Sheinbaum executive order placing a 50% duty on finished passenger vehicles from non-FTA states and is framed by the Secretaría de Economía and SHCP as the operational tariff instrument of Plan México (2025-01-21).

On 24 December 2025 China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) jointly issued Order No. 37, the Catalogue for Encouraging Foreign Investment in Industries (2025 Edition), effective 1 February 2026 and replacing the 2022 Edition (issued 26 October 2022). The revised catalogue expands to 1,679 total entries — a net increase of 205 and 303 modified relative to 2022 — split between a nationwide catalogue (619 entries, +100, 131 modified) and a regional catalogue for central/western China, the northeast, and Hainan (1,060 entries, +105, 172 modified). Foreign investors in listed sectors qualify for tariff and tax preferences on imported equipment and other incentives under China's foreign-investment regime. The revision prioritises advanced manufacturing and modern services and steers new entries toward inland and border provinces.

At the APEC Busan summit on 30 October 2025, Presidents Trump and Xi reached the "Economic and Trade Arrangement Between the United States and the People's Republic of China," subsequently implemented on the US side by the executive order "Modifying Reciprocal Tariff Rates Consistent with the Economic and Trade Arrangement" (issued 4 November 2025; effective 12:01 am EST on 10 November 2025; published in the Federal Register on 7 November 2025 as 90 FR 50729 / 2025-19826) and on the Chinese side by a series of MOFCOM and State Council Tariff Commission announcements (notably MOFCOM 2025 No. 90 of 8–9 November 2025). The arrangement is structurally parallel to the already-filed US-Japan, US-Korea and US-Taiwan framework deals but uniquely material because it freezes the highest-stakes bilateral tariff and export-control confrontation of the post-2024 reset. Core US commitments: (i) reciprocal-tariff "additional ad valorem rate of duty" on PRC-origin goods reduced from a prior 20% IEEPA-fentanyl + 10% IEEPA-reciprocal stack to a 10% rate (i.e., the prior 24% / 34% scheduled escalation is suspended), extended through 10 November 2026; (ii) US BIS suspends the so-called "affiliates rule" expanding entity-list controls to majority-owned subsidiaries of listed Chinese firms; (iii) USTR pauses Section 301 maritime / shipbuilding / logistics countermeasures against Chinese vessels for one year. Core PRC commitments: (i) MOFCOM suspends for one year (until 10 November 2026) the 9 October 2025 extraterritorial rare-earth export-control package — including controls on REE processing equipment, lithium-battery manufacturing equipment, and superhard materials; (ii) PRC suspends retaliatory tariffs on a broad swath of US agricultural products through 31 December 2026; (iii) commitment to purchase ≥25 million metric tonnes of US soybeans annually in 2026-2028 and to resume sorghum and log imports; (iv) suspension of MOFCOM antitrust and "unreliable-entity" probes against named US semiconductor and chip-equipment companies; (v) cooperation on fentanyl precursor enforcement. The arrangement does not repeal underlying authorities (IEEPA tariffs, MOFCOM export-control list, Entity List) — it is a calibrated mutual freeze with a one-year sunset and quarterly review checkpoints.

China's State Council General Office issued Guobanfa [2025] No. 34 ("Notice on Implementing Domestic Product Standards and Related Policies in Government Procurement") on 28 September 2025, effective 1 January 2026. The notice applies a 20% price deduction to domestic-product bids when evaluating government procurement tenders; suppliers whose domestic-content cost share reaches 80% or more of total product cost get the deduction applied to their entire quoted price rather than only the domestic-content portion. Coverage is economy-wide across the government's Goods Classification Directory (Global Trade Alert separately tagged natural/man-made textile fibres and yarn under this measure), with narrow carve-outs for real estate, cultural relics, agricultural/forestry/fishery products, minerals, utilities, and food/tobacco raw materials. The Ministry of Finance published implementing guidance (Caiku [2025] No. 30) shortly after.

On 17 September 2025 the General Office of the Shanghai Municipal People's Government issued Hufubangui [2025] No. 8, a five-year (26 September 2025 - 25 September 2030) state-aid framework to accelerate frontier-technology innovation and cultivate "future industries" across six domains — future manufacturing, future information, future materials, future energy, future space and future health. Targeted technology areas include cell and gene therapy, brain-computer interfaces, biomanufacturing, embodied intelligence (humanoid robotics/AI hardware), fourth-generation semiconductors, silicon photonics, 6G, neuromorphic computing, quantum technology, controlled nuclear fusion and regenerative medicine. Support is disbursed as tiered direct subsidies rather than tax relief, with named ceilings up to CNY 30 million per proof-of-concept/R&D platform and CNY 20 million per high-quality incubator or first-product/batch innovation award.

On 28 July 2025 the General Office of the Shanghai Municipal People's Government issued Hufubangui [2025] No. 6, the "Shanghai Embodied Intelligence Industry Development Implementation Plan" (上海市具身智能产业发展实施方案), a dedicated municipal state-aid package to build Shanghai into a global innovation hub for embodied intelligence (humanoid robotics / physical AI). The plan targets an industry scale of CNY 500 billion by 2027, alongside at least 20 core algorithm/technology breakthroughs, four or more high-quality incubators, and "100-100-100" targets for leading enterprises, applications and products. Support is disbursed as tiered direct subsidies capped at CNY 50 million (30% of project cost) for core-technology R&D, CNY 40 million per company per year for computing-power credits, CNY 20 million (50% of cost) for public-platform construction, CNY 10 million (20% of cost) for application-demonstration projects, CNY 5 million per company per year for language-corpus services, CNY 5 million (5% of contract value) for robot sales/rental incentives, CNY 5 million per open-source project, and CNY 1 million per leading enterprise for standards development. Target application sectors are logistics, industrial manufacturing, retail, healthcare/eldercare and domestic services.

On 10–11 May 2025 in Geneva, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and USTR Jamieson Greer met with PRC Vice Premier He Lifeng and on 12 May 2025 issued the "Joint Statement on US-China Economic and Trade Meeting in Geneva," producing the first bilateral de-escalation of the post-2 April 2025 reciprocal-tariff stand-off. The agreement was implemented on the US side via Executive Order 14298 of 12 May 2025 ("Modifying Reciprocal Tariff Rates To Reflect Discussions With the People's Republic of China," published in the Federal Register 21 May 2025 as 90 FR 21831 / 2025-09297) and on the Chinese side via State Council Tariff Commission Announcement No. 4 of 2025. Effective 12:01 a.m. EDT on 14 May 2025, both sides suspended for 90 days (through 12 August 2025) the 24 percentage points of additional ad valorem duty layered on top of the prior 10% reciprocal rate, while the 10% reciprocal rate itself was retained. On the US side this reduced the headline reciprocal-tariff burden on PRC-origin goods from a 125% scheduled rate (under EOs 14259 and 14266) to 10%; combined with the still-in-force 20% IEEPA-fentanyl tariff under Executive Order 14195 (separately filed: `2025-02-01-us-trump-fentanyl-tariffs-canada-mexico-china`), the effective additional rate on most Chinese imports came down to ~30%. China made a parallel 24pp suspension on US-origin goods (from a 125% retaliatory rate to 10%) and additionally suspended non-tariff countermeasures imposed since 2 April 2025 (export controls, unreliable-entity designations, MOFCOM probes). The truce is structurally a calibrated freeze of the reciprocal-tariff ladder under the April 2025 regime, not a repeal: the underlying EO 14257 / IEEPA framework remains intact and was scheduled to re-engage at the 24pp escalated rate on 12 August 2025 absent further extension. The Geneva agreement is the precursor to the August 2025 Stockholm extension and the October 2025 Busan Economic and Trade Arrangement (separately filed: `2025-10-30-us-china-busan-economic-trade-arrangement`).

On 6 September 2024 China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) jointly issued Order No. 23, the Special Administrative Measures (Negative List) for Foreign Investment Access (2024 Edition), effective 1 November 2024. The 2024 list reduces nationwide restrictions from 31 to 29 entries, removing the last two manufacturing- sector restrictions (publication printing must be Chinese-controlled; investment in TCM-decoction steaming/roasting/calcination processes and confidential-formula proprietary Chinese-medicine production prohibited). Restrictions remain in services (telecommunications value-added, healthcare, education) and in 21 prohibited categories (news publishing, postal monopoly, fishing, gene therapy, tobacco). The 2021 edition is repealed on the same date.

On 13 March 2024 the State Council issued the Action Plan on Promoting Large-Scale Equipment Renewal and Consumer Goods Trade-In as Guo Fa [2024] No. 7, distributed by NDRC alongside ten implementing ministries. Branded the "Two New" (两新) initiative, it is the flagship Xi/Li-era domestic-demand industrial-policy instrument structured around four action lines (equipment renewal, consumer-goods trade-in, recycling and circular utilisation, standards uplift) with twenty specific tasks and 2027 quantitative targets including ≥25% increase in equipment investment vs 2023 across industry, agriculture, construction, transport, education and healthcare. Funded by CNY 150bn of ultra-long-term special treasury bonds in 2024, expanded to CNY 300bn earmarked in 2025, the programme drove >CNY 1.3 trillion of consumer-goods trade-in transactions (autos, appliances, home furnishings, e-bikes) in its first year and is the central pillar of Beijing's response to the property-sector slowdown.

The Legislative Yuan of Taiwan (ROC) passed amendments to Articles 10-2 and 72 of the Statute for Industrial Innovation ("產業創新條例") on third reading on 7 January 2023. The amendment, internationally termed the "Taiwan Chips Act," is implemented from 1 January 2023 to 31 December 2029. Article 10-2 grants Taiwan-registered companies that occupy key positions in international supply chains a 25% investment tax credit on qualifying forward-looking innovative R&D expenditure (capped at 30% of the year's profit-seeking enterprise income tax payable), plus a 5% credit on the purchase of brand-new machinery or equipment used in own-account advanced manufacturing processes (also capped at 30%). Eligibility thresholds set by the Ministry of Finance require annual R&D spend of at least NT$6bn, R&D intensity (R&D / net operating revenue) of at least 6%, and an effective tax rate of at least 15% (12% for FY2023 only); the 5% equipment credit additionally requires equipment expenditure of at least NT$10bn. The measure is Taiwan's principal supply- side response to the US CHIPS Act, the EU Chips Act, the K-Chips Act, and Japan's METI subsidy programme, and is designed to retain TSMC, MediaTek, and other leading-edge silicon investment onshore as overseas subsidies pull capacity to Arizona, Kumamoto, Dresden, and elsewhere.

OFAC codified the Chinese Military-Industrial Complex Sanctions Regulations at 31 CFR Part 586, implementing Executive Order 13959 (November 12, 2020) as amended by Executive Order 14032 (June 3, 2021). The regulations prohibit US persons from purchasing or selling publicly traded securities of entities designated on OFAC's Non-SDN Chinese Military-Industrial Complex Companies (NS-CMIC) List, which identifies firms determined to support the People's Liberation Army or Chinese surveillance-technology programs. A divestment deadline of June 3, 2022 applied to entities named in the original EO 13959 annexes; future additions carry a one-year divestment window from the date of designation.

China's State Council Tariff Commission published its annual "2022 Tariff Adjustment Plan" (税委会〔2021〕18号) on 13 December 2021, effective 1 January 2022. Within the bundled annual schedule, the commission cancelled the 20% provisional preferential export tariff on ferrochrome (HS 72024100/72024900) that had applied since May 2021, reverting it to the standard 40% export rate — a doubling. Ferrosilicon (HS 72022100/72022900) continued at the 25% rate it had already moved to when its own preferential rate was cancelled in May 2021. Both are framed as measures to restrain export of energy- and emissions-intensive primary ferroalloy products and preserve domestic steelmaking input supply.

The US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) published abbreviated Hong Kong-Related Sanctions Regulations at 31 CFR Part 585, codifying the sanctions framework established by Executive Order 13936 of July 14, 2020 ("The President's Executive Order on Hong Kong Normalization"). The regulations prohibit all transactions with persons designated under EO 13936 — those determined to have undermined Hong Kong's autonomy or contributed to the erosion of freedoms guaranteed under the Sino-British Joint Declaration — and add designated persons to the OFAC Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list. OFAC published the rules in abbreviated form for immediate public guidance, with intent to supplement with full interpretive guidance, general licenses, and licensing policy.

On 15 March 2019, the Second Session of the 13th National People's Congress adopted the Foreign Investment Law of the People's Republic of China (FIL), effective 1 January 2020. The statute replaced the prior tripartite FDI regime — the 1979 Equity Joint Venture Law, the 1986 Wholly Foreign-Owned Enterprise Law, and the 1988 Contractual Joint Venture Law (collectively the "Three Laws") — with a unified legal framework covering all foreign investment in China. The FIL establishes a pre-establishment national treatment plus negative-list regime jointly administered by NDRC and MOFCOM, a Foreign Investment Information Reporting System replacing the former case-by-case approval regime, a national security review mechanism (China's CFIUS equivalent, codified at Art. 35), and Art. 22 technology-transfer prohibition protections. The State Council Implementation Regulations (Order No. 723, promulgated 26 December 2019) entered force on the same date as the FIL.