Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2663 actions· ✨ 89 recent

On 2 February 2026 the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) Board approved a Direct Loan of up to USD 10 billion to an independently governed public-private partnership establishing the U.S. Strategic Critical Minerals Reserve ("Project Vault"), alongside nearly USD 2 billion of private-sector investment for an envelope of approximately USD 12 billion. The reserve will physically stockpile the 60 minerals on the USGS 2025 Critical Minerals List across multiple US storage facilities, with participating original equipment manufacturers (Clarios, GE Vernova, Western Digital, Boeing) committing to specific volumes and grades and trading partners (Hartree Partners, Mercuria Americas, Traxys) handling sourcing. EXIM characterises the transaction as the largest single financing in its 92-year history and the first use of EXIM authority as the financing vehicle for a domestic strategic-minerals stockpile rather than for export-credit insurance abroad.

President Trump signed Executive Order 14241 on 20 March 2025 (Federal Register publication 25 March 2025) invoking Defense Production Act (DPA) Title III sections 301, 302, and 303 — and selected Title VII authorities — for domestic critical-mineral production, and delegated those authorities to the Chief Executive Officer of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC). The order operationalises the "national energy emergency" declared by EO 14156 (Jan 2025) to waive certain DPA §303 congressional-notification thresholds, designates "mineral production" as an Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment Program priority, expands the EO definition of "critical minerals" to include uranium, copper, potash, gold (and any further item designated by the Chair of the National Energy Dominance Council), and directs the Departments of the Interior, Energy, Treasury, and EXIM Bank to mobilise federal lands, permitting, and financing to expand US upstream and midstream capacity. EO 14241 is the cross-cutting domestic-mineral umbrella authority of the second Trump administration, paired with FY2025 supplemental appropriations (USD 2bn National Defense Stockpile, USD 5bn Industrial Base Fund) and complemented by the 24 April 2025 follow-on EO on offshore minerals and the 8 April 2025 coal amendment.

President Trump signed two Presidential Proclamations on 11 February 2025 reinstating a universal 25% ad-valorem tariff on all steel-mill products and raising the aluminum tariff from 10% to 25% on all imports into the United States, effective 12 March 2025. The proclamations revoked every bilateral exclusion and quota arrangement negotiated by the Biden administration with the EU, UK, Japan, Korea, Australia, and others under the 2021-2022 "alternative measures" frameworks, returning all trading partners to the baseline Section 232 rate without product-level or country-level carve-outs.

Signed by President Javier Milei and the entire cabinet on 20 December 2023 and published in the Boletín Oficial extraordinario on 21 December 2023, Decreto de Necesidad y Urgencia 70/2023 declares a public emergency across economic, financial, fiscal, administrative, pension, tariff, sanitary, and social matters until 31 December 2025 (Article 1) and enacts 366 articles across 16 titles that fundamentally restructure Argentina's regulatory framework. The DNU repeals or amends dozens of statutes to deregulate foreign trade (repealing the Compre Nacional buy-preference law Ley 18.875 and the price-control framework Ley 27.345), opens privatisation of state enterprises (Aerolíneas Argentinas, ENARSA, Banco Nación, Correo Argentino, Trenes Argentinos), dismantles the Ley de Abastecimiento price-control regime, liberalises civil aviation cabotage to foreign carriers, deregulates hydrocarbons export and mining permitting, and replaces the severance-pay regime with a capitalisation-fund system. It is the foundational enabling framework for all subsequent Milei-administration deregulatory instruments filed on the IPTM register, including RIGI (Law 27.742), Decreto 38/2025, Decreto 449/2025, and Decreto 563/2025.

Regulation (EU) 2023/956 of the European Parliament and of the Council, published in OJ L 130 on 16 May 2023 and entering into force on 17 May 2023, establishes the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) — the Union's primary instrument for preventing carbon leakage at the external border. The regulation applies an equivalent carbon price to embedded greenhouse gas emissions in imports of six sector groups (iron and steel, aluminium, cement, fertilizers, electricity, and hydrogen) from non-EU/EEA/Swiss counterparts, complementing the EU Emissions Trading System's domestic coverage. A transitional reporting-only phase operated from 1 October 2023 through 31 December 2025; the definitive certificate-purchase-and-surrender regime entered full application from 1 January 2026.

The EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) entered its definitive phase on 1 January 2026 following a transitional reporting period that began October 2023. Under Regulation (EU) 2023/956, importers of goods in six carbon-intensive sectors (iron and steel, aluminium, cement, fertilizers, electricity, and hydrogen) must now purchase CBAM certificates corresponding to embedded carbon emissions. The Q1 2026 certificate price was set at EUR 75.36 per tonne CO2, calculated from EU ETS auction prices. In 2026, the adjustment factor is 2.5%, rising annually to 100% by 2034.

On 25 February 2023, one year into Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Council of the European Union adopted Council Regulation (EU) 2023/427, the 10th package of sanctions, amending Regulation (EU) 833/2014. It entered into force on publication the following day (26 February 2023). The package bans imports of asphalt and synthetic rubber from Russia (with a temporary transitional import quota for rubber products running to 30 June 2024), expands the export ban on dual-use and advanced-technology goods, suspends further Russian media broadcasting licences in the EU, and designates 87 individuals and 34 entities — including Iranian persons and entities involved in drone manufacture and supply, and 96 entities tied to Russia's defence-industrial base — to the EU asset-freeze/travel-ban list.

On 16 December 2022 the Council of the European Union adopted Council Regulation (EU) 2022/2474, the 9th package of restrictive measures against Russia, amending Regulation (EU) 833/2014. It entered into force on publication the following day (17 December 2022). The package extends the prohibition on new EU investment from the Russian energy sector to the Russian mining and quarrying sector, bans exports of aircraft and drone engines and their parts to Russia (and to any third country that could re-supply drones to Russia), adds 168 entities to the sectoral export- control annex covering chemicals, nerve agents, night-vision and radio- navigation equipment, electronics and IT components, and prohibits EU advertising, market-research, product-testing and technical-inspection services to Russia. A parallel Council Decision/Implementing Regulation designated a further 141 individuals and 49 entities to the EU asset-freeze and travel-ban list.