Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2672 actions· ✨ 89 recent

On 11 December 2025 the US Department of State announced the inaugural Pax Silica Summit, held in Washington D.C. on 12 December 2025, at which the United States, Australia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the United Kingdom, Singapore and Israel signed the non-binding Pax Silica Declaration. The declaration commits signatories to coordinate "trusted" supply chains across the full technology stack — software, frontier foundation models, network infrastructure, compute and semiconductors, advanced manufacturing, transportation logistics, minerals refining and processing, and energy — explicitly to reduce "coercive dependencies." The coalition has since expanded to add the United Arab Emirates, Greece, Qatar, Sweden and India (signed 20 February 2026 at the India AI Impact Summit), and on 26 March 2026 State announced a USD 250 million Pax Silica Fund intended to catalyse trusted-capital co-investment in critical-minerals processing and semiconductor supply chains.

Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Bahlil Lahadalia signed Peraturan Menteri ESDM Nomor 18 Tahun 2025 ("Permen ESDM 18/2025") on 14 November 2025, Indonesia's first comprehensive ministerial-level framework for the exploration, designation, allocation, and utilisation of rare-earth resources. The regulation operationalises Government Regulation PP 39/2025 (signed 11 September 2025), which inserted a dedicated rare-earths article (Article 18A) into PP 96/2021 on the implementation of mineral and coal mining business activities. It empowers the Minister to designate BUMN (state-owned enterprises) as preferred operators of rare-earth mining and processing, mandates that REE output prioritise domestic strategic industries (defence, electric vehicle batteries, advanced technology, permanent magnets), and routes inventarisation through the geological agency before WIUP (mining business permit areas) are awarded.

Colombia's Ministerio de Minas y Energía filed Proyecto de Ley 282 de 2025 in Congress on 1 October 2025 — the first comprehensive reform of the national Mining Code since Ley 685/2001. The bill replaces the existing extractivist concession model with a state-directed planning framework that designates Strategic Mineral Areas (AME) for copper, lithium, and nickel under direct state control aligned with energy-transition goals. It establishes excluded zones (ZEM) and permitted zones (ZAM), restructures the concession and royalty regime to expand community and ethnic-peoples' participation rights, and redefines minerals as national public-interest assets rather than private-sector concession targets. As of May 2026 the bill was advancing through Senate committee deliberation.

Indonesia's Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources issued Permen ESDM No. 17 of 2025 on procedures for preparing, submitting and approving Work Plans and Budgets (RKAB) and reporting of mineral and coal mining activities. Signed by Minister Bahlil Lahadalia on 30 September 2025 and in force from 3 October 2025, the regulation reverses the 2023 three-year RKAB cycle back to an annual cycle, requires all IUP/IUPK holders to resubmit through the new MinerbaOne digital portal between 1 October and 15 November each year, annuls previously-issued 2026/2027 quotas, and introduces a 5-working-day auto-approval rule. Operationalised by a 2026 nickel-ore RKAB target band of 250–270 million wmt — roughly one third below the 2025 approved quota of ~379 million wmt — explicitly framed as a price-management and conservation instrument. First clear use of the RKAB framework as an explicit market-management lever rather than a domestic-licensing tool.

Canada made SOR/2025-143, Regulations Amending the Special Economic Measures (Russia) Regulations, registered 2025-06-13. The regulations add 14 new items (743-756) to Part 2 of Schedule 1, designating Russian quantum-technology institutions and firms — including the Moscow State University Quantum Technology Centre, the National University of Science and Technology's Centre for Quantum Communications, QRate, and Rusnano — triggering a dealings ban and asset freeze. The same instrument adds a new import prohibition on coal products (Schedule 5.01) and a new export prohibition on jet fuel and additives (Schedule 5.02) and on chemical/ biological-weapons-related items (Schedule 10.1), and extends the existing metals import ban (Schedule 11) to further product lines — all coming into force 60 days after registration (~2025-08-12), with a 120-day grace period for pre-existing contracts.

Government Regulation No. 19 of 2025 on Types and Rates of Non-Tax State Revenue (PNBP) applicable to the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, signed by President Prabowo Subianto on 11 Apr 2025 and effective 26 Apr 2025 (15 working days after promulgation), revokes PP 26/2022 and replaces fixed mining royalty rates with a progressive tiered system anchored to international benchmark prices (HMA for nickel, HBA for coal). Headline shifts: nickel ore from fixed 10% to 14–19% by HMA tier; ferronickel 2% → 4–6%; nickel matte 2% → 3.5–5.5%; NPI 5% → 5–7%; copper cathode 2% → 4–7%; tin 3% → 3–10%; gold 3.75–10% → 7–16%; coal up to 13.5% at HBA >USD 90 for >5,200 kcal/kg grades. The regulation is the cornerstone fiscal lever of the Prabowo nickel-downstreaming/hilirisasi 2.0 strategy alongside RKAB-quota tightening that cut national nickel quotas from 272m to 150m tonnes for 2025.

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.

Indonesia's House of Representatives (DPR) passed the Fourth Amendment to Law No. 4 of 2009 on Mineral and Coal Mining on 18 February 2025, and the government enacted it as Undang-Undang Nomor 2 Tahun 2025 on 19 March 2025. The amendment statutorily entrenches the long-standing hilirisasi (downstream-utilisation priority) doctrine for IUP/IUPK holders at production stage, opens preferential mining-permit allocation pathways for SMEs, cooperatives, religious-organisation business entities, and BUMN/BUMD, and ties licence issuance to approved RKAB production quotas — operationalising the Bahlil/Prabowo supply-management strategy across nickel, bauxite, copper, cobalt, manganese, tin, and zinc.

Indonesia issued Government Regulation (Peraturan Pemerintah) No. 8 of 2025 on Foreign-Exchange Proceeds from Natural-Resource Exports (DHE SDA), amending PP No. 36/2023. President Prabowo Subianto announced the policy at Merdeka Palace on 17–18 February 2025 and the regulation takes effect on 1 March 2025. It mandates that exporters of non-oil- and-gas mining, plantation, forestry, and fisheries products with export-proceeds value of USD 250,000 or more per shipment retain 100 percent of those foreign-exchange proceeds inside Indonesia's financial system for 12 months — sharply up from the prior 30 percent for 3 months under PP 36/2023. Oil-and-gas exporters remain on the earlier 30 percent / 3-month regime. Permitted in-period uses include rupiah conversion at the holding bank, payment of state obligations in foreign currency, dividend distribution, payment for imported raw materials and capital goods unavailable domestically, and servicing of foreign-currency capital-expenditure loans. Non-compliance carries administrative sanctions including suspension of export services. The government has projected the measure could lift retained foreign- exchange proceeds by USD 80 billion in 2025 and over USD 100 billion on a full 12-month basis.

MOFCOM and the General Administration of Customs jointly issued Announcement No. 10 [2025] on 4 February 2025, imposing dual-use export-licence controls on items related to tungsten, tellurium, bismuth, molybdenum and indium under the Export Control Law and Dual-Use Items Export Control Regulations. The controls cover metals, alloys, powders, compounds and related processing technologies across roughly 25 listed item categories (41 HS 10-digit codes). The measure is global in scope but was issued the same day China announced 10-15% retaliatory tariffs on US LNG, coal, crude and farm equipment in response to the Trump administration's 10% fentanyl-tariff hike — extending the MOFCOM critical-minerals control regime beyond gallium/germanium/graphite/antimony/heavy-REEs.

China's Unreliable Entity List (UEL) Working Mechanism, led by MOFCOM, issued Announcement [2025] No. 2 on 4 February 2025, designating PVH Group (parent of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger) and Illumina Inc. (US genomics / gene-sequencing equipment maker) as Unreliable Entities under the 2020 UEL Provisions, citing violations of normal market-transaction principles and discriminatory measures against Chinese enterprises. PVH was cited for its Xinjiang-cotton sourcing boycott (MOFCOM probe launched September 2024); Illumina was cited for restricting Chinese customers' access to gene-sequencing equipment. The announcement was issued on the same day as China's IEEPA-retaliation tariff package (10–15 % on US coal, LNG, crude oil, agricultural goods, and autos), making it the first UEL listing of a Western consumer-brand / retail company and the first combining a UEL designation with a subsequent sector-specific export prohibition (gene sequencers, imposed 28 February 2025).

President Trump signed three Executive Orders on 1 February 2025 (EO 14193, 14194, 14195) declaring national emergencies under IEEPA over the cross-border flow of fentanyl + illegal migration, and using that authority to impose new tariffs: 25% on imports from Canada (with a reduced 10% rate on Canadian energy products), 25% on imports from Mexico, and an additional 10% on imports from China (separate from pre-existing Section 301 + Section 232 tariffs). The tariffs took effect 4 February 2025. On 3 February 2025 the administration announced a 30-day pause for both Canada and Mexico following bilateral border-enforcement commitments; the China tariff was not paused. China responded 4 February with retaliatory tariffs of 15% on US LNG/coal/farm equipment and additional measures. The package set the precedent for the broader 2 April 2025 "Liberation Day" reciprocal-tariff regime (filed: 2025-04-02-us-trump-reciprocal-tariff-regime).

New Zealand's Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), under Resources Minister Hon Shane Jones, launched the country's first national Minerals Strategy and first Critical Minerals List on 31 January 2025 at OceanaGold's Waihi gold mining operation in Hauraki. The Critical Minerals List identifies 37 minerals essential to New Zealand's economy, national security, and technology needs — including gold and metallurgical coal added in the final version (up from 35 minerals in the September 2024 draft consultation). The Minerals Strategy sets a target of doubling New Zealand mineral exports from approximately NZD 1.2 billion/year to NZD 3 billion by 2035, supported by a Wood Mackenzie advisory assessment (December 2024) that identified 21 of the 37 listed minerals as domestically produced or having domestic production potential.

On 3 January 2025 President Prabowo Subianto signed Keputusan Presiden (Keppres) No. 1 of 2025, establishing the Satuan Tugas Percepatan Hilirisasi dan Ketahanan Energi Nasional (Task Force for the Acceleration of Downstreaming and National Energy Resilience). The task force operates directly under the President, is chaired by the Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources (Bahlil Lahadalia), and pulls together cabinet members from Investment & Downstreaming, Agrarian Affairs, Agriculture, Marine Affairs, Finance, Industry, SOEs, Environment, Public Works, Trade, plus the Attorney General and Police Chief. Its mandate covers minerals and coal, oil and gas, agriculture, forestry, fisheries and energy security: identifying strategic projects, mapping priority business areas, formulating standards on financing and state-revenue capture, adjusting spatial planning, and recommending administrative action against officials obstructing implementation. The task force reports to the President at least biannually and is funded out of the ESDM ministry budget.