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

On 22 December 2025 the FCC's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau released Public Notice DA-25-1086, adding to the Covered List (under section 1709 of the FY2025 NDAA) all unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and UAS critical components produced in a foreign country, plus communications and video-surveillance equipment/services produced by DJI Technologies and Autel Robotics (and their subsidiaries, affiliates, and licensing/JV partners). The designation is comprehensive by scope — every foreign-made drone from consumer quadcopters to large uncrewed systems, with no size/performance carve-out — and blocks the FCC from granting any new equipment authorization to covered UAS/components going forward. Previously authorized models already in the US market are not revoked. A follow-on Public Notice (DA-26-22, 7 January 2026) narrowed the scope with a temporary exemption (see amendments).

The Chongqing Municipal Government General Office issued Notice 渝府办发〔2025〕58号 on 2025-11-22, promulgating "Several Policy Measures to Promote High-Quality Development of the Low-Altitude Economy," effective immediately through 2027-12-31. The package comprises eight capped-percentage subsidy tracks covering low-altitude public-service procurement, logistics route operating subsidies (up to RMB 150,000 per route), demonstration projects (up to RMB 20 million), test-flight infrastructure (20% of investment, capped at RMB 5 million), manufacturing R&D and first-of-kind equipment support (up to 30% of receipts, capped at RMB 5 million), national innovation/manufacturing centres (up to RMB 20 million), ground-station infrastructure (20% of investment, capped at RMB 10 million), private-equity fund-manager incentives (1% of invested capital, capped at RMB 10 million cumulative), and AI-compute subsidies (20% of service cost, up to RMB 1 million/year). Global Trade Alert classifies all eight interventions as state aid with a "certainly harmful" (Red) rating.

The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) amended the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) to add 29 entries — 26 entities and 3 addresses — to the Entity List under the destinations of China (19), Turkey (9), and the United Arab Emirates (1). BIS determined these parties were diverting US-origin items to Iran, including to parties already on the BIS Entity List and on OFAC's Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) List, in support of Iranian drone-parts and electronics-procurement networks. The rule is a final rule effective October 8, 2025; new license requirements apply to all items subject to the EAR for these listed parties under a presumption-of-denial review policy.

On 8 September 2025, the UK Ministry of Defence published the Defence Industrial Strategy 2025 — "Making Defence an Engine for Growth" (CP 1388) — the first comprehensive cabinet-level UK defence industrial strategy in over a decade and the sector plan for Defence under the UK Modern Industrial Strategy umbrella (IS-8). The strategy was published alongside the Strategic Defence Review 2025 and operationalises the largest sustained defence- spending increase since the Cold War (rising to 2.6% of GDP by 2027 with ambition to 3% in the next Parliament). It defines six priority outcomes (growth, backing UK businesses, defence innovation, resilient industrial base, procurement transformation, enduring partnerships); establishes UK Defence Innovation (UKDI) within the MOD with a ringfenced £400m budget to accelerate dual-use technology; identifies priority defence capabilities (combat air, complex weapons, directed-energy weapons, next- generation land and maritime systems) plus dual-use sub-sectors (quantum, drones/autonomy, space, AI, cyber, engineering biology, advanced connectivity); and flags resilience priorities in steel, construction, energetic materials, batteries, semiconductors and rare earths.

Poland's Sejm adopted on 25 July 2025 — and the President signed on 5 August 2025 (Dz.U. 2025 poz. 1080, in force 7 September 2025) — a Special Act on Strategic Investments in the Field of National Defence and Public Security that creates an accelerated authorisation track for defence and public- security infrastructure projects: a single combined administrative decision issued within 90 days of application, simplified notification regime inside closed military zones, replacement of full environmental and water-law assessments with targeted mitigation, and an exemption from the Public Procurement Law for Ministry-of-National-Defence-cleared unmanned aerial vehicles, unmanned weapon platforms and counter-drone systems. The statute is the procedural backbone for Poland's PLN 187bn 2025 defence budget (≈4.7% of GDP, the highest share in NATO) and dovetails with Poland's €43.7bn EU SAFE defence-loan allocation signed in May 2026.

President Trump signed Executive Order 14307 on 6 June 2025 establishing the first whole-of-government Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) industrial-policy framework. The order (i) directs federal agencies to prioritise procurement and operation of US-manufactured UAS and to identify and rescind purchases of foreign-made drones where consistent with national security; (ii) tasks the FAA with proposing a Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) rule within 30 days and publishing a final BVLOS rule within 240 days; (iii) creates an eVTOL Integration Pilot Program (eIPP) with at least five projects selected within 180 days; and (iv) instructs the Federal Acquisition Security Council to publish a "Covered Foreign Entity List" within 30 days, operationalising the §1709 FY24 NDAA architecture that targets Chinese drone manufacturers (DJI, Autel and successor entities). Published in the Federal Register on 11 June 2025 (90 FR 24727).

China's MOFCOM Unreliable Entity List Working Mechanism designated 11 US drone-sector companies on 4 April 2025 — Skydio Inc., BRINC Drones Inc., Kratos Unmanned Aerial Systems Inc., Insitu Inc., Red Six Solutions LLC, SYNEXXUS Inc., Firestorm Labs Inc., HavocAI, Neros Technologies, Domo Tactical Communications LLC, and Rapid Flight LLC — citing military-technology cooperation with Taiwan in violation of China's One-China principle. Designations prohibit the 11 firms from import/export activity related to China, bar new investments in China, and restrict senior-executive entry. Issued on the same date as the MOFCOM heavy rare-earth export-licensing measure, the designations formed a paired retaliation package responding to the 2 April 2025 US "Liberation Day" reciprocal-tariff escalation. On 15 May 2025 MOFCOM suspended the UEL restrictions on all 11 companies for 90 days in line with the US-China Geneva tariff truce.

In its first major export-regulatory action of the second Trump administration, BIS amended the EAR to add 70 entities to the Entity List under the destinations of China (42), Iran (2), Pakistan (19), South Africa (3), and the United Arab Emirates (4), and modified four existing entries (France, Iran, Senegal, UK). New listings carry a license requirement for all items subject to the EAR with a presumption-of-denial review policy and no license exceptions available. Stated objectives include restricting China's acquisition of high-performance computing and quantum technologies for military use, impeding hypersonic-weapons development, disrupting Iran's UAV and defense procurement, and impairing Pakistan's unsafeguarded nuclear and ballistic-missile programs. The rule also targets the Test Flying Academy of South Africa for using U.S.-origin items to train Chinese military pilots.

Denmark's Forsvarsministeriet announced on 19 February 2025 a DKK 50 billion (~EUR 6.7 bn / USD 7.3 bn) Accelerationsfonden (Acceleration Fund) to be exhausted across 2025–2026, supplementing the existing 2024–2033 defence agreement (forsvarsforlig). A broad cross-party political agreement was formalised on 22 February 2025, confirming Danish defence spending will exceed 3% of GDP in both 2025 and 2026. The Fund operates as a fiscal procurement envelope granting enlarged direct-award authority to the Defence Procurement and Logistics Organisation (FMI), relying on the Article 346 TFEU essential-security-interest exemption to bypass standard EU competitive-tender rules for accelerated kit acquisition. Direct-award contracts already executed under the Fund include DKK 1.9 bn for 130 Patria 6×6 armoured personnel carriers and DKK 880m for ESSM Block 2 air-defence missiles.