Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2662 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.

South Korea's National Assembly passed the "Special Act on Strengthening and Supporting the Competitiveness of the Semiconductor Industry" (반도체산업 경쟁력 강화 및 지원에 관한 특별법) on 29 January 2026 by 199 votes in favour out of 206 members present, after roughly 18 months of inter-party deadlock. The act establishes (i) a Presidential Commission for Enhancing Semiconductor Competitiveness as the central inter-ministerial coordination body, (ii) a statutory five-year master plan with annual implementation plans, (iii) a dedicated semiconductor industry special account ("반도체산업 특별회계") to ring-fence funding for fabs, materials, parts and equipment, and packaging across the full memory + system-LSI + design + manufacturing supply chain, and (iv) authority to designate semiconductor clusters outside the greater Seoul area with relocation incentives. Promulgation by the Cabinet is expected shortly after passage; effectiveness contingent on enforcement-ordinance finalisation, expected Q3 2026. The KRW 2tn anchor envelope of the special account does not begin disbursing until 2027 because companion amendments to the National Finance Act were not enacted in time.

On 14 January 2026 President Trump issued a Presidential Proclamation under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 imposing a 25% ad valorem tariff on imports of certain advanced computing chips and their derivative products, effective 12:01 a.m. EST on 15 January 2026. The measure adopts findings of the Section 232 investigation initiated 1 April 2025 (Department of Commerce report transmitted 22 December 2025) into semiconductors, semiconductor manufacturing equipment, and derivative products. Coverage is narrowly drawn to high-performance AI accelerators meeting specified technical parameters (publicly characterised as covering devices in the NVIDIA H200 / AMD MI325X performance tier), with broad use-based exemptions for chips going into US data centres, US R&D, US repairs, and other uses deemed to strengthen domestic supply chains.

The US Bureau of Industry and Security issued a final rule (RIN 0694-AK43, 91 FR 1684, signed 13 January 2026, effective 15 January 2026) revising the EAR license-review policy for exports of certain advanced-computing integrated circuits to end-users in China and Macau from a presumption of denial to case-by-case review. Eligibility is limited to commodities controlled under ECCN 3A090.a and 3A090.b with a Total Processing Performance (TPP) below 21,000 and total DRAM bandwidth below 6,500 GB/s — the band that covers NVIDIA H200 and AMD MI325X-equivalents and below. To qualify, exporters must certify (i) sufficiency of US supply such that the export will not delay domestic orders or divert foundry capacity, (ii) that aggregate TPP of advanced-node ICs exported to China or Macau will not exceed 50% of domestic shipments, (iii) compliance with end-use and end-user prohibitions, and (iv) prior performance review by a qualified independent third-party testing lab headquartered in the United States. The rule is the first material rollback of the October 2022 / October 2023 / December 2024 advanced-computing export-control architecture and operationalises the Trump-administration policy of trading H200-class chip access against Chinese cooperation on critical minerals, fentanyl precursors and Taiwan-strait restraint.

On 7 January 2026 the National Semiconductor and Advanced Electronics Industry Policy Committee (the "Semiconductor Board"), chaired by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Ekniti Nitithanprapas, endorsed the Draft National Strategy for the Development of the Semiconductor and Advanced Electronics Industry, prepared by the Board of Investment (BOI) with Roland Berger after a public hearing in October 2025. The 25-year roadmap (2026-2050) targets more than THB 2.5 trillion (~USD 79.6 billion) in investment, training of more than 230,000 highly-skilled engineers, and construction of a complete upstream-to- downstream semiconductor ecosystem with phased milestones for 2030, 2040 and 2050. The strategy prioritises five product groups where Thailand has competitive potential — Power chips, Sensors, Photonics, Analog and Discrete chips — and explicitly aims to move the country beyond OSAT (Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test) into IC design and upstream wafer fabrication ("Made-in-Thailand chips"). Implementation runs through a five-pillar BOI support mechanism: long-term low-interest financing and grants, human-capital development, technology upgrade of the Microelectronics Technology Centre (TMEC), specialised industrial clusters with guaranteed renewable-energy and water security, and streamlined regulatory approvals including a new BOI "FastPass" fast-track facility (16 pilot projects worth THB 170 billion already processed).

On 26 December 2025, Japan's Cabinet under Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi approved the FY2026 (Reiwa 8) national budget, which allocates JPY 150 billion (~USD 1bn) to the "Investment Project for Mass Production of Next-Generation Semiconductors" -- a state equity-investment line administered by the Information-technology Promotion Agency (IPA) that funds Rapidus Corporation's 2nm-class logic fab in Chitose, Hokkaido. The FY2026 allocation is 50% larger than the JPY 100 billion IPA equity tranche budgeted for FY2025, taking cumulative government equity in Rapidus to roughly JPY 250 billion. The line sits inside METI's wider AI/semiconductor budget of JPY 1.239 trillion for FY2026 (up roughly 4x year-on-year) under the "AI/Semiconductor Industry Base Strengthening Frame," part of the government's pledge of over JPY 10 trillion in public support for AI and chips through FY2030. The budget takes effect with Japan's fiscal year on 1 April 2026, subject to ordinary Diet passage in early 2026.

On 21 November 2025, METI Minister Yoji Akazawa designated Rapidus Corporation as the official next-generation semiconductor manufacturer under Japan's Act on Facilitation of Information Processing (情報処理の促進に関する法律, as amended by the Cabinet-approved partial-amendment bill of 7 February 2025), following a public solicitation run 3 September – 2 October 2025. The designation makes Rapidus eligible for a multi-year METI funding envelope reported at roughly JPY 1tn (~USD 6.4bn), with an initial JPY 100bn equity investment by the Information-technology Promotion Agency (IPA) planned for FY2025; the funds support Rapidus' Hokkaido (Chitose) IIM-1 fab targeting 2nm GAA mass production from April 2027 and successor 1.4nm / 1nm nodes. The action is the first standalone Rapidus entry in the IPTM register and operationalises the supply-chain pillar of the 2022 Economic Security Promotion Act for advanced logic.

On 20 November 2025 the White House and US Department of Commerce / Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) authorised Abu Dhabi AI holding company G42 to import advanced computing chips — equivalent to approximately 35,000 Nvidia GB300 Blackwell processors — under the UAE-pioneered Regulated Technology Environment (RTE) compliance framework. The RTE is an Emirati-designed technology governance and audit architecture, developed by G42 and approved under BIS guidelines, with binding UAE-side controls to prevent onward diversion to foreign adversary nations. The authorisation accelerates the Stargate UAE project — a 1 GW AI compute cluster being built by G42 for OpenAI in partnership with Oracle, Cisco, NVIDIA, and SoftBank Group — and represents the first concluded major country-level advanced-compute authorisation following the May 2025 rescission of the Biden-era AI Diffusion Rule.

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.

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.

Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/2003, adopted by the European Commission on 8 September 2025, published in the Official Journal on 14 November 2025 and entering into force on 15 November 2025, amends Annex I of Regulation (EU) 2021/821 to implement the 2024 multilateral decisions of the Wassenaar Arrangement, MTCR, Australia Group, and NSG. The most extensive EU semiconductor-equipment additions since the 2021 framework took effect: ALD, epitaxial deposition, lithography, EUV pellicles/masks/reticles, SEM, and etching equipment, plus tighter controls on quantum computers, advanced FPGAs/ICs for AI training, additive-manufacturing, and cryogenic/superconducting components. The regulation is the EU-side update layer of the Western dual-use export control architecture, structurally aligned with the US BIS advanced- computing/SME packages and the Netherlands DUV-licensing regime.

The US Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) amended the Export Administration Regulations to remove three foreign-owned semiconductor fabs operating in China — Intel Semiconductor (Dalian) Ltd, Samsung China Semiconductor Co. Ltd, and SK hynix Semiconductor (China) Ltd — from the Validated End-User (VEU) Authorizations list (15 CFR Part 748). BIS framed the VEU program as a "loophole" that previously allowed these fabs to receive most US-origin chipmaking equipment, software and technology license-free, a privilege no US-owned fab in China ever had. After the effective date, every restricted shipment to these fabs will require an individual export license, reviewed case-by-case under the existing 2022/2023 advanced- computing controls. The rule is published as Federal Register document 2025-16735 (90 FR 42321), Docket BIS-2025-0555, RIN 0694-AK32.

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%.

Malaysia's Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry, acting through the Strategic Trade Controller, issued Directive No. 1/2025 on 14 July 2025 invoking Section 12 of the Strategic Trade Act 2010 to declare high-performance US-origin AI chips (GPUs, TPUs, neural processors, AI accelerators meeting the Annex I total-processing-performance and performance-density thresholds) as "unlisted controlled items". With effect from 14 July 2025, any export, transshipment, or transit of those chips through Malaysian territory requires a Strategic Trade Permit, a 30-day prior notification, an export-control classification from the manufacturer, and a re-export licence from the originating country. The directive is the formal Malaysian response to US scrutiny over alleged Nvidia AI-chip flows to China via Malaysian freight forwarders and data-centre operators, and it remains binding even after the US relaxes its own export rules.

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.

Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs International Trade Administration (MOEA-ITA) amended the Strategic High-Tech Commodities (SHTC) export-control Entity List on 10 June 2025 (announced 15 June 2025) under Article 13 of the Trade Act, adding 601 new entities — including Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) plus 599 additional entities domiciled in China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan and Myanmar. Taiwanese exporters (TSMC, UMC, ASE, KYEC and downstream suppliers) must obtain pre-export government licences for direct or third-party shipments of any SHTC-listed item to the listed entities; the action expands Taiwan's total entity-list population to ~10,844 entities. Two follow-on amendments tightened the regime further: a +279-entity expansion on 18 September 2025 and an 18-item commodity-list expansion on 18 November 2025 covering advanced 3D printers, semiconductor manufacturing equipment, electron microscopes and quantum-computing hardware.

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`).

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.

Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) overhauled the catch-all export-control framework under the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act (FEFTA) — the first comprehensive review of Japan's catch-all controls in 12 years (since 2013). Cabinet decisions were taken on 25 March 2025 and 4 April 2025 with METI's consolidated announcement on 9 April 2025; the amended Cabinet Order entered into force on 9 October 2025. The reform (i) splits catch-all-controlled items into "core items" (high dual-use risk, including certain semiconductors and machine tools) and a general catch-all tier, (ii) adds a new end-user requirement alongside the existing end-use requirement and extends both from UN-arms-embargo countries only to "general countries" (everywhere outside Group A), materially expanding the perimeter of items requiring METI export licences for general-country end-users including China, and (iii) introduces an "informed" condition for exports to Group A countries — once METI notifies an exporter of a defined risk pattern, a Group A export becomes licence-required, addressing transit-export-circumvention to Russia. Structurally distinct from the 23-category equipment-specific 2023 amendment (2023-03-31-japan-meti-semi-equipment-export-controls); this is the underlying horizontal catch-all reform and brings Japan's framework closer to US BIS EAR catch-all controls.

The US Bureau of Industry and Security amended the Export Administration Regulations to add 12 entities to the Entity List under the destinations of China (11) and Taiwan (1) via Final Rule 2025-05427 (90 FR 14046), companion to the larger 70-entity rule (2025-05426) published the same day. Targets fall in three clusters: (i) Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence and Beijing Innovation Wisdom Technology — added for acquiring US-origin items in support of China's military modernization, specifically developing large AI models and advanced computing chips for defense; (ii) the Inspur group — Inspur (Beijing) Electronic Information Industry, Inspur Electronic Information Industry, Inspur Electronic Information (Hong Kong), Inspur (HK) Electronics, Inspur Software, and Inspur Taiwan — added as subsidiaries contributing to supercomputers for military end use; and (iii) Henan Dingxin, Nettrix Information Industry, Suma Technology, and Suma-USI Electronics — added for involvement in the development of Chinese exascale supercomputers. License requirements are for all items subject to the EAR; review policy is presumption of denial for the AI cluster and policy of denial for the supercomputer clusters.

South Korea's National Assembly passed the Special Act on the Expansion of the National Electricity Network (Law No. 20844) on 19 February 2025 as part of the bipartisan "Energy Trifecta Bill," with promulgation on 25 March 2025 and entry into force on 26 September 2025. The act creates an expedited siting, permitting, and compensation framework for trunk transmission-grid construction, consolidating 35 previously separate regulatory approvals into a single streamlined procedure and targeting a >30% reduction in grid-build timelines. It directly addresses the electricity-infrastructure bottleneck constraining semiconductor fab clusters (Yongin, Pyeongtaek, SK Hynix HBM), sovereign AI datacenter build-out, and EV/battery gigafactory load growth — structurally distinct from the K-Chips Act (fiscal incentives) and the Semiconductor Special Act (regulatory framework), as it unblocks the physical power-delivery constraint those programmes depend on.

China's Ministry of Commerce announced on 3 December 2024 (MOFCOM Announcement No. 46 of 2024) a formal ban on dual-use exports to the United States of gallium, germanium, antimony and superhard materials including diamond and cubic boron nitride. The measure also imposed strict end-use review on graphite exports to the US, with extra scrutiny of military end-uses. It came one day after BIS issued a major export- control package on 2 December 2024 expanding controls on Chinese semiconductor equipment and adding 140 entities to the Entity List, and was framed by MOFCOM as a national- security countermeasure.

The US Bureau of Industry and Security issued its largest single export-control package targeting China's semiconductor industry on 2 December 2024, with three layered measures (final rules published in the Federal Register 5 December 2024). First, controls on high-bandwidth memory (HBM) above set performance thresholds — blocking the memory architecture that is foundational to AI training. Second, additions of 24 semiconductor manufacturing equipment item types to the Commerce Control List, covering deposition, etch, ion- implant, advanced packaging, and metrology categories. Third, Entity List designations for 140+ entities, the bulk Chinese semiconductor companies + equipment makers + investment vehicles, including major Chinese fab tooling firms. The package triggered MOFCOM's same-day-following retaliation (filed: 2024-12-03-china-mofcom-ge-ga-sb-export-ban-us).

Premier Li Qiang signed State Council Decree No. 792 on 19 October 2024 promulgating the Regulations of the People's Republic of China on Export Controls for Dual-Use Items, with effect from 1 December 2024. The regulation, organised in six chapters and 50 articles, consolidates the previously fragmented nuclear / biological / chemical / missile dual-use control regimes into a single State Council framework operationalising the 2020 Export Control Law. It introduces a control-list / temporary-control / watchlist architecture, a statutory end-user / end-use commitment regime, transit / transhipment / re-export controls, extraterritorial reach over PRC items downstream, and explicit linkage to the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law. On 15 November 2024 MOFCOM, MIIT, GAC and SCA jointly issued Announcement No. 51 of 2024 publishing the consolidated Dual-Use Items Export Control List with a unified five-character ECCN-style coding system, also effective 1 December 2024.

On 6 September 2024 the Dutch government announced an expansion of its national export-control measure on advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment, bringing two additional ASML DUV immersion lithography systems — TWINSCAN NXT:1970i and NXT:1980i — under a Dutch national authorisation requirement for shipments to destinations outside the EU. The measure took effect on 7 September 2024 via a ministerial regulation published in Staatscourant 2024 no. 29008. Until this point those two older system variants were controlled extraterritorially through the US Foreign Direct Product Rule; the change transfers licensing authority from BIS to the Dutch government and aligns the Dutch national list more tightly with the perimeter set by the June-2023 measure on NXT:2000i+. ASML characterised the update as a "technical change" with no expected impact on its 2024 financials or longer-term outlook.

The US Bureau of Industry and Security issued a final rule on 5 September 2024 (effective 6 September 2024, published in the Federal Register on the same day as 89 FR 73285) establishing multilateral export controls on four categories of emerging technologies: (1) quantum computing items including quantum computers, related cryogenic / control / measurement systems, and certain quantum software; (2) gate-all-around field-effect transistor (GAAFET) production technology — the next-node semiconductor architecture beyond FinFET; (3) advanced additive-manufacturing equipment for metals + alloys; (4) certain biotech-related items added in a parallel rule on 12 September 2024. The rule operates without country exceptions for some categories, with multilateral coordination via Wassenaar + Australia Group + Nuclear Suppliers Group frameworks.

China registered the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund III Co., Ltd. ("Big Fund III") in Beijing on 24 May 2024 with RMB 344 billion (~USD 47.5 billion) of registered capital — the largest single capital raise of the three Big Fund phases (Phase I 2014: RMB 138.7bn; Phase II 2019: RMB 204bn). Nineteen state-owned investors contribute, led by the Ministry of Finance (17% / RMB 60bn) and the six largest state-owned commercial banks (ICBC, ABC, BoC, CCB ~6.25% each at RMB 21.5bn; BoCom RMB 20bn; PSBC RMB 8bn). Duration 15 years (24 May 2024 → 23 May 2039). The fund explicitly targets the chokepoints exposed by US BIS October 2022/2023/2024 controls — semiconductor manufacturing equipment, advanced memory (HBM/DRAM), AI accelerators, and third-generation compound semiconductors (SiC, GaN).

The Biden administration announced on 14 May 2024 a package of Section 301 tariff increases on Chinese imports following the four-year statutory review of the original 2018-2019 tariffs. The hikes target sectors central to the US-China industrial-policy contest: BEVs went from 25% to 100%, lithium- ion EV batteries 7.5% → 25% (with non-EV battery cells rising in 2026), battery parts 7.5% → 25%, natural graphite + magnets 0% → 25% (phased to 2026), semiconductors 25% → 50% (phased to 2025), solar cells 25% → 50%, steel + aluminum products in selected categories 0-7.5% → 25%, ship-to-shore cranes 0% → 25%, certain medical products 0-7.5% → 50%. USTR issued the final determination on 13 September 2024 with most items effective 27 September 2024.

Japan's National Diet enacted the Act on the Protection and Use of Critical Economic Security Information (重要経済安保情報の保護及び活用に関する法律, Act No. 27 of 2024) on 10 May 2024; it was promulgated on 17 May 2024 and came into full operation on 16 May 2025. The law establishes Japan's first peace-time economic-security clearance regime extending to private-sector employees. It designates "Critical Economic Security Information" (CESI) covering threat-intelligence on critical-infrastructure cyber attacks, regulatory-review information on essential infrastructure, and vulnerability data on critical-product supply chains; mandates Cabinet Office "適性評価" (suitability assessment) for cleared personnel; and imposes criminal penalties of up to five years' imprisonment for unauthorised disclosure. The CESI Act complements the 2022 Economic Security Promotion Act (ESPA), closing the information-protection gap and aligning Japan's framework with Five Eyes and EU partners for joint R&D and dual-use cooperation.

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.

On 25 October 2023 the Bureau of Industry and Security published an interim final rule (88 FR 73424; FR Doc 2023-23055) making substantive revisions to the October 7 2022 advanced-computing IFR, incorporating 43 public comments covering 78 topics. The rule replaced the prior TOPS-based performance metric with a new "Total Processing Performance" (TPP) / performance-density dual-threshold structure for ECCN 3A090, splitting the control into tiers 3A090.a (full licence requirement for highest-capability datacenter AI chips) and 3A090.b (new License Exception NAC with 25-day prior notification for the intermediate tier). Geographic scope was expanded from China-and-Macau to Country Groups D:1/D:4/D:5 to block diversion via third-country intermediaries and offshore datacenters.

The US Bureau of Industry and Security issued an interim final rule on 17 October 2023 that substantially expanded the advanced-computing and semiconductor manufacturing controls first imposed in October 2022. The rule closed the performance-threshold workaround that NVIDIA had used to ship China-specific A800/H800 GPUs, replacing it with a "performance density" metric and adding a new "Notified Advanced Computing" licence category. It expanded controls on chipmaking equipment (additional ECCNs covering deposition, etch, metrology), pulled 21 additional countries (mostly Middle East / Central Asia) into a regional licensing scheme to prevent transshipment, and added 13 Chinese entities to the Entity List including AI-chip designers.

Regulation (EU) 2023/1781, published in the Official Journal on 18 September 2023 and in force from 8 October 2023, establishes the EU Chips Act: a three-pillar framework targeting 20% of global semiconductor production by 2030 (up from approximately 9% in 2022) by mobilising EUR 43bn in public and private investment. Pillar 1 (Chips for Europe Initiative, EUR 3.3bn committed from EU budget) funds R&D, pilot production lines, and design infrastructure. Pillar 2 creates a fast-track permitting regime for "Integrated Production Facilities" (IPFs) and "Open EU Foundries" (OEFs) that qualify as being in the Union's interest. Pillar 3 establishes a supply-chain monitoring mechanism and grants the Commission power to mandate priority orders from designated facilities during a declared semiconductor crisis.

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.

President Biden signed Executive Order 14105 on 9 August 2023, "Addressing United States Investments in Certain National Security Technologies and Products in Countries of Concern", establishing the first dedicated US outbound-investment screening regime. The EO directs Treasury to prohibit or require notification of US investments in Chinese (and Hong Kong, Macau) entities engaged in three categories of technology: (1) semiconductors and microelectronics, (2) quantum information technologies, (3) artificial intelligence systems. After a public-comment process, Treasury issued the final rule (31 CFR Part 850) on 28 October 2024, effective 2 January 2025.

China's Ministry of Commerce and General Administration of Customs jointly announced an export licensing regime covering eight gallium-related items (including gallium metal, gallium arsenide, gallium nitride wafers and ingots) and six germanium- related items (including germanium metal, germanium oxide, germanium tetrachloride). Effective 1 August 2023, exporters must obtain a dual-use-item licence from MOFCOM citing the end-user and end-use, with licences granted at MOFCOM's discretion. The measure was framed as protecting national security and interests, though the timing immediately followed the Dutch ASML DUV controls and US chip-equipment escalations.

The Dutch government announced on 30 June 2023 a new national export-licensing requirement covering specific advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment, most prominently ASML's TWINSCAN NXT:2000i and subsequent DUV immersion lithography systems used at ≤14/16nm logic, advanced DRAM, and advanced 3D NAND production. Effective from 1 September 2023 via the national Strategic Goods Decree, the rule completes the trilateral US-Japan-Netherlands chip-equipment perimeter initiated by the January 2023 trilateral agreement. Although nominally country-neutral, the BIS Foreign Direct Product Rule means licences for shipments to "countries of concern" — read: China — face a presumption of denial. Subsequent guidance in 2024 expanded coverage to additional TWINSCAN NXT:1970Ci and 1980Di system variants.

Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) announced on 31 March 2023 amendments to the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act adding 23 categories of advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment to the export-licensing list. The measure, effective from 23 July 2023, is the Japanese counterpart to the US October 2022 BIS rule (filed: 2022-10-07-us-bis-advanced-ai-chip-controls-china) and the Dutch DUV controls. Items covered span lithography (mostly ArF and KrF), deposition (CVD, ALD, sputtering), etch, and cleaning + advanced inspection — broadly the toolset used at ≤14/16nm logic, advanced DRAM, and advanced 3D NAND. The controls are formally non-discriminatory but in practice capture exports to China; non-China destinations get general licences.

The Korean National Assembly passed an amendment to the Restriction of Special Taxation Act (조세특례제한법, Act No. 19234) on 30 March 2023, promulgated 31 March 2023 and retroactive to 1 January 2023. The amendment enhanced the investment tax credit (ITC) for "national strategic technology" (국가전략기술) semiconductor facility investment: large companies receive a 15% ITC on qualifying capital expenditure (up from 8% in the December 2022 base version); small and medium enterprises receive 25%. An additional temporary 10% incremental credit applies for annual investment exceeding the prior 3-year average (effective 2023-2025). Internationally termed the "K-Chips Act," the measure directly mirrors the US CHIPS Act's 25% advanced- manufacturing investment tax credit. Principal beneficiaries are Samsung Electronics (Samsung Foundry plus DRAM/NAND capex of KRW 20-30 trillion per year) and SK Hynix (memory fabs at Icheon and Cheongju, HBM expansion). In the same session the National Assembly passed companion legislation on secondary-battery (EV) investment with equivalent credit rates. The Korean government projected annual tax savings for the semiconductor sector of approximately KRW 1-2 trillion.

BIS published an interim final rule on January 18, 2023 (88 FR 2821, FR Doc 2023-00888) extending to Macau the same advanced computing and semiconductor manufacturing controls originally imposed on China by the October 7, 2022 rule. The extension closes a diversion loophole created by Macau's status as a Special Administrative Region of China, applying equivalent license requirements for advanced computing ICs, equipment used in ≤14 nm logic and advanced NAND/DRAM fabrication, and supercomputer end-use restrictions. The rule also includes entity list modifications and took effect one day before Federal Register publication (January 17, 2023).

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.

The Bureau of Industry and Security added 36 entities — 35 in China, 1 in Japan — to the Entity List under a presumption of denial for all EAR-controlled items, effective December 16, 2022. The most consequential additions are Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC, simultaneously removed from the Unverified List), eight Cambricon AI-chip subsidiaries, and Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment (SMEE), China's sole domestic lithography producer. Three existing entries were revised: CETC 13 and two affiliates gained a Footnote 3 Russian-military-end-user designation, bringing them under the Russia/Belarus Foreign Direct Product rule with a blanket denial policy.

The US Bureau of Industry and Security imposed broad new controls on the export of advanced computing chips, chipmaking equipment, and US-person services supporting Chinese semiconductor fabrication. The October 7 2022 rule blocked supply of GPUs above set performance thresholds (initially 600 GB/s interconnect / 4800 TOPS) to China and added end-use restrictions on manufacturing tools used in advanced (≤14/16 nm logic, ≤18 nm DRAM, ≤128-layer NAND) facilities, with a foreign direct product rule extending coverage globally.

The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) added 31 Chinese entities — including Yangtze Memory Technologies Co., Ltd. (YMTC), China's largest NAND flash manufacturer — to the Unverified List (UVL), suspending license exceptions and requiring end-user statements for all EAR-controlled items destined to these parties. BIS simultaneously removed nine Chinese entities previously on the UVL after successfully completing end-use checks. The rule also established a new 60-day UVL-to-Entity-List escalation clock and clarified that sustained host-government obstruction of end-use checks constitutes independent grounds for Entity List designation — a structural enforcement change aimed at closing China's pattern of blocking BIS post-shipment verification visits.

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.

The Act on the Promotion of Ensuring National Security through Integrated Implementation of Economic Measures (Law No. 43 of 2022), enacted 18 May 2022, establishes a four-pillar framework: (1) supply-chain resilience for "specified critical products," (2) security of critical infrastructure, (3) state-backed development of "specified critical technologies," and (4) non-disclosure of nationally sensitive patents. A December 2022 Cabinet Order designated 11 product categories as specified critical products, including semiconductors, storage batteries, permanent magnets, cloud programs, LNG, critical minerals, machine tools, and aircraft parts. Competent ministries must publish stable-supply plans, can fund private-sector surveys, and may provide subsidies to qualifying firms.

The Wet veiligheidstoets investeringen, fusies en overnames ("Vifo Act") is the Netherlands' cross-sector statutory FDI screening regime. Adopted by the States-General on 18 May 2022 (Stb. 2022, 215) and entered into force on 1 June 2023 together with two implementing decrees (Stb. 2023, 173 — main implementing decree; Stb. 2023, 172 — decree defining the scope of "sensitive technology"), the Act establishes mandatory pre-closing notification and a security review by the Bureau Toetsing Investeringen (BTI, part of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate) for transactions affecting (i) "vital providers" in critical infrastructure sectors — energy, transport, telecoms, port operators, banking infrastructure — and (ii) Dutch undertakings active in "sensitive technology", defined to include EU Reg 2021/821 Annex I dual-use items, military goods, and additional national-security technologies. The regime applies retrospectively to transactions completed after 8 September 2020. It is the foundational instrument under which the Dutch national export-control measures on ASML DUV immersion lithography (filed: 2023-06-30 and 2024-09-07) operate, and the Dutch peer of US CFIUS, EU Regulation 2019/452, the German AWG §§55-62, the French Décret 2014-479 / R. 151-1 et seq., and the UK NSI Act 2021.

METI committed 476 billion yen (~$3.3bn) in direct subsidies covering approximately half the construction cost of Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing K.K. (JASM), a purpose-built joint venture fab at Kikuyo Town, Kumamoto Prefecture. JASM shareholders are TSMC (86.5%), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (6%), Denso (6%), and Toyota Motor (1.5 %). The fab manufactures 12nm, 16nm, 22nm, and 28nm mature-node chips targeting automotive-grade, industrial, and IoT applications. A groundbreaking ceremony was held on 13 April 2022; the facility officially opened on 24 February 2024 and reached commercial production in December 2024. JASM represents Japan's first new leading-edge wafer fab in decades and the largest single foreign direct investment in Japanese manufacturing history.