Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2666 actions· ✨ 90 recent

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

President Trump signed Executive Order 14404, "Imposing Sanctions on Those Responsible for Repression in Cuba and for Threats to United States National Security and Foreign Policy," on 1 May 2026. The order operationalises the country-specific national emergency declared by EO 14380 (29 January 2026) — which had been preserved after the SCOTUS *Learning Resources* vacatur of the IEEPA tariff authority — by establishing a sectoral OFAC blocking regime. Section 2 authorises asset-blocking against any foreign person determined by the Secretary of Treasury (in consultation with State) to operate in Cuba's energy, defense and related materiel, metals and mining, financial services, or security sectors, or "any other sector" subsequently designated. Section 3 suspends entry under INA § 212(f) for covered aliens. Section 4 authorises secondary sanctions against foreign financial institutions that knowingly conduct or facilitate significant transactions for blocked persons, with both correspondent-account and SDN-listing remedies. The EO itself includes no annex of named designations — those are issued by OFAC under separate determinations.

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.

President Trump signed a Presidential Proclamation on 20 February 2026 invoking Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 (19 U.S.C. § 2132) to impose a temporary 10% ad-valorem import surcharge on articles imported into the United States, effective 12:01 a.m. EST on 24 February 2026. The proclamation was issued within hours of the US Supreme Court's 20 February 2026 ruling in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, which held that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) does not authorize the president to set tariffs and vacated the IEEPA-based reciprocal-tariff regime previously in effect. The Section 122 surcharge is statutorily limited to 150 days (terminates 24 July 2026 absent Congressional extension) and the statute caps any such surcharge at 15% ad valorem. Goods qualifying as USMCA originating from Canada or Mexico are exempt; CAFTA-DR textile/apparel articles meeting specified rules of origin are exempt; and a substantial product-exception list excludes critical minerals, energy products, certain pharmaceuticals, electronics, vehicles, aerospace products, specified agricultural goods, and goods already subject to Section 232 duties (the Section 122 duty does not stack on Section 232).

President Trump signed Executive Order 14382, "Addressing Threats to the United States by the Government of Iran," on 6 February 2026 (effective 12:01 a.m. EST on 7 February 2026; published in the Federal Register on 11 February 2026 as FR doc 2026-02813, 91 FR 6493-6496). Invoking IEEPA, the National Emergencies Act, section 604 of the Trade Act of 1974 and 3 U.S.C. § 301, the order declared a country-specific national emergency with respect to Iran and established a secondary-tariff-authority framework: an additional ad valorem duty (the EO offers "for example, 25 percent" as illustration but sets no binding rate) is authorised on imports of articles produced by any foreign country determined to directly or indirectly purchase, import, or otherwise acquire any goods or services from Iran. Determinations are made by the Secretary of Commerce, with rate recommendations from the Secretary of State in consultation with Treasury, DHS and USTR; the President retains final authority. EO 14382 was structurally modelled on EO 14245 (Venezuelan oil importing countries, 24 March 2025) and EO 14380 (Cuba, 29 January 2026), and was on the list of nine IEEPA-based tariff EOs whose tariff component was vacated by the SCOTUS 6-3 ruling in *Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump* (20 February 2026). The companion EO 14389 of 20 February 2026 ("Ending Certain Tariff Actions") extinguished the tariff authority for entries on or after 12:00 a.m. ET on 24 February 2026; the underlying Iran national- emergency declaration was preserved. No third-country determination or specific rate was operationalised under EO 14382 prior to vacatur.

President Trump signed Executive Order 14380, "Addressing Threats to the United States by the Government of Cuba," on 29 January 2026 (effective 12:01 a.m. EST on 30 January 2026; published in the Federal Register on 3 February 2026 as FR doc 2026-02250, 91 FR 5085-5089). Invoking IEEPA and the National Emergencies Act, the order declared a country-specific national emergency with respect to Cuba, citing Havana's intelligence and defense alignment with Russia, the PRC, Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah — including the Russian signals-intelligence facility hosted on the island. The operative measure was a secondary-tariff-authority framework: the EO authorises additional ad valorem duties on goods imported from any country determined to be selling or otherwise providing oil to the Government of Cuba, whether directly or indirectly. No specific rate was set in the EO itself — rate-setting was delegated to the Secretary of Commerce (in consultation with State, Treasury, DHS and USTR). The EO was structurally analogous to EO 14245 (Venezuelan oil importing countries, 24 March 2025) and was on the list of nine IEEPA-based tariff EOs whose tariff component was vacated by the SCOTUS 6-3 ruling in *Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump* (20 February 2026); the underlying Cuba national-emergency declaration was preserved by the 20 February 2026 "Ending Certain Tariff Actions" EO, but the tariff authority was extinguished before any third-country determination or rate was operationalised.

President Trump signed Executive Order 14323, "Addressing Threats to the United States by the Government of Brazil," on 30 July 2025 (published in the Federal Register on 5 August 2025 as FR doc 2025-14896). Invoking IEEPA and the National Emergencies Act, the order declared a country- specific national emergency citing "policies, practices, and actions" of the Lula government — including the criminal prosecution of former president Jair Bolsonaro, asserted infringement of the free-expression rights of US persons via DSA-style platform-content rules, and retaliatory measures targeting US digital firms — as constituting an "unusual and extraordinary threat" to US national security, foreign policy, and economy. The EO imposed a 40% additional ad valorem duty on Brazilian-origin goods effective for entries on or after 12:01 a.m. EDT on 6 August 2025; stacked on top of the 10% baseline reciprocal rate from EO 14257/14326, the cumulative rate reached 50% for non- exempt goods. Annex I exempted civil aircraft and parts, orange juice, certain machinery, certain metals, and energy/energy products. The EO was amended on 20 November 2025 (effective for entries on or after 13 November 2025) to exempt 238+ HTSUS codes for agricultural products (beef, tropical produce, nuts, coffee, cocoa, cassava derivatives, etc.) following initial Trump-Lula bilateral negotiations on 6 October 2025. The IEEPA-tariff component was terminated by EO of 20 February 2026 ("Ending Certain Tariff Actions") within hours of the SCOTUS 6-3 ruling in *Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump* holding that IEEPA does not authorize the imposition of tariffs.

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

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`).