Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2662 actions· ✨ 89 recent

Cumhurbaşkanı Kararı No. 10790 (Resmi Gazete 31 December 2025, issue 33124 3rd reprint), in force 1 January 2026, restructures Türkiye's annual import-tariff architecture across 4,344 product lines from non-EU origins. The decree (i) introduces or expands additional customs duty (Ek Mali Yükümlülük / İlave Gümrük Vergisi) of 5%–48% on non-EU imports of iron and non-alloy steel, copper, aluminium, and base-metal household goods; (ii) introduces forward-looking import-surveillance measures across 172 products under 36 notifications, with reference-price floors that cap effective duty relief on under-valued shipments; (iii) updates duties on 324 Customs Tariff Statistical Positions across 21 chapters (219 HS lines raised by 2.4–15 percentage points; 8 lines under HS 7225/7228/8528/8529 raised by 3–14 points; 2 lines reduced by 6 points); (iv) opens duty-free tariff quotas for 35 industrial-product categories — including 27 battery / lithium-cell HS codes through 1 February 2027, 8m m² of plastic-treated textiles through 31 December 2026, and 40,725 tons of organic chemicals and aluminium sheets (16 February–31 December 2026); and (v) imposes a permit regime (6-month validity) on used and refurbished goods. EU and EU-Customs-Union origins remain exempt under A.TR preferential rules; the structural asymmetry vs non-EU partners is the core mechanism. Stated rationale (Ministry of Trade): support domestic production, prevent unfair competition, increase employment, reduce the current-account deficit.

Decree reforming various tariff fractions of the General Import and Export Duties Tariff (TIGIE), published in the Diario Oficial de la Federación on 29 December 2025 and in force 1 January 2026. The reform, approved by Congress as a statutory amendment to the LIGIE (Chamber of Deputies and Senate, Dec 2025) and signed by President Claudia Sheinbaum, raises MFN import duties to between 5% and 50% ad valorem on 1,463 tariff lines covering more than 20 chapters of the TIGIE, spanning automotive, auto parts, textiles, apparel, footwear, steel, aluminum, plastics, paper, leather, furniture, glass, toys, appliances and cosmetics. The increases apply only to goods originating in countries without a free trade agreement with Mexico — principally China, South Korea, India, Vietnam, Thailand, Brazil, Indonesia, Chinese Taipei, the UAE, and South Africa. The decree formalises at statutory level the September 2024 Sheinbaum executive order placing a 50% duty on finished passenger vehicles from non-FTA states and is framed by the Secretaría de Economía and SHCP as the operational tariff instrument of Plan México (2025-01-21).

On 27 December 2025, Codelco and SQM formally closed NovaAndino Litio SpA, the 50:50 joint venture (with a golden share for state-owned Codelco) mandated by the 2023 National Lithium Strategy to bring the Salar de Atacama under state operational control. The vehicle is formed by merging Codelco's subsidiary Minera Tarar SpA with SQM's SQM Salar SpA, governed by a six-director board (three Codelco, three SQM), and runs until 2060 under a CORFO contract amendment that extends operations beyond SQM's previous 2030 lease expiry. SQM manages operations 2025-2030, Codelco from 2031 onward; the Chilean state captures up to ~70% of operating margins through 2030 and ~85% from 2031. As part of the closing, SQM transferred all of its mining concessions in the Salar de Maricunga to Codelco. President Boric and the Cabinet Económico formally endorsed the venture on 29 December 2025, when the first board meeting was held in Santiago.

China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on 26 December 2025 that it is imposing countermeasures under Articles 3, 4, 5, 6, 9 and 15 of the Law of the People's Republic of China on Countering Foreign Sanctions against 20 US defense-related companies and 10 senior executives, in response to the Trump administration's 18 December 2025 announcement of roughly $11.1bn in arms sales to Taiwan — the largest single US weapons package for the island to date. Measures freeze the named entities' assets within China, prohibit organizations and individuals in China from transacting or cooperating with them, and deny visas/entry to the named executives. This is a Foreign Ministry Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law designation, distinct in legal basis from MOFCOM's parallel Unreliable Entity List mechanism used in prior 2025 Taiwan-arms-sale tranches (e.g. the 9 April 2025 six-firm UEL listing).

On 26 December 2025, Japan's Cabinet approved the FY2026 (Reiwa 8) initial budget, which allocates a new JPY 415 billion (~USD 2.7bn) line to the "Low-Carbon Hydrogen Hub Development Support Project" (低炭素水素 等拠点整備支援事業), administered by METI's Agency for Natural Resources and Energy (ANRE) through JOGMEC under the Hydrogen Society Promotion Act framework enacted in 2024. The programme subsidises Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) and construction costs for shared transport and storage infrastructure -- tanks, pipelines and receiving-terminal equipment -- built jointly by multiple businesses to move low-carbon hydrogen and its derivatives (ammonia, e-methane, synthetic fuels) from import/production points to industrial users. It sits alongside, but is administratively distinct from, JOGMEC's separately-run "price-gap" (kakakusa) 15-year CfD offtake support for hydrogen suppliers. The budget takes effect with Japan's fiscal year on 1 April 2026, subject to ordinary Diet passage in early 2026.

On 26 December 2025, Japan's Cabinet approved the FY2026 (Reiwa 8) national budget, which allocates JPY 122.0 billion (~USD 800m) to the "Next-Generation Innovative Reactor Technology Development and Industrial Base Strengthening Support Project" (次世代革新炉の技術開発・産業基盤強化支援事業), up from JPY 88.9 billion in the FY2025 initial budget plus a JPY 6.0 billion FY2025 supplementary allocation. The programme, administered by ANRE under METI's GX (Green Transformation) Promotion budget, funds technology development and supply-chain build-out for Japan's "innovative light-water reactors" (revised BWR/PWR designs with enhanced passive safety) and small modular reactors under the government's GX2040 Vision. The budget takes effect with Japan's fiscal year on 1 April 2026, subject to ordinary Diet passage in early 2026.

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.

Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) and the Cabinet Office jointly published the Shipbuilding Revival Roadmap (造船業再生ロードマップ) on 26 December 2025, redefining shipbuilding as a "national strategic industry" within an All-Japan shipping-and-shipbuilding framework. The Roadmap targets doubling domestic shipbuilding capacity from ~9 million GT to 18 million GT by 2035 (re-capturing roughly 20% global market share) backed by a ¥1 trillion (~USD 6.4 bn) public-private investment commitment over three staged phases (2026-28 automation, 2029-31 facility expansion, 2032-34 dock-operation support), mandates consolidation of domestic shipbuilders into 1-3 groups by 2028, and is funded in its first three years by a ¥120 bn FY2025 supplementary budget enacted in December 2025.

On 26 December 2025 the President of Kazakhstan signed a law amending the Code "On Subsoil and Subsoil Use" with respect to the hydrocarbon and uranium sectors, followed on 30 December 2025 by a parallel set of amendments implementing presidential instructions on broader subsoil-use governance. Both packages take effect on 2 March 2026. The uranium amendments grant the National Atomic Company Kazatomprom (KAP) a statutory priority right to obtain exploration licences over prospective uranium areas listed in the State Subsoil Fund Management Programme, and to reserve blocks containing uranium mineralisation or deposits. Where uranium mineralisation is discovered on a solid-mineral block held by a third-party subsoil-user, an extension of that licence is conditional on the licensee surrendering the uranium-bearing block to the State; private subsoil-users no longer obtain priority production rights for uranium they discover. The amendments also raise the minimum direct or indirect Kazatomprom interest in any uranium mining project from 50% to 75%, and permit subsequent transfer to investors or joint-venture partners only subject to that 75% floor. The 30 December 2025 package establishes the National Geological Service as a non-privatisable national operator subordinate to the authorised subsoil-exploration agency and as the operator responsible for managing geological information; it also creates a Unified Subsoil Use Platform digital infrastructure (open geological-information database integrated with the Unified State System for Management of the Fuel and Energy Complex). The hydrocarbon track of the law shortens block-reservation periods and pushes unallocated plots into electronic-auction allocation to accelerate competitive exploration. The amendments accompany an announced USD 500m state geological-exploration programme.

On 26 December 2025 the Peruvian executive promulgated and published in El Peruano Ley N° 32537, modifying Decreto Legislativo 1293 to extend the Registro Integral de Formalización Minera (REINFO) — Peru's artisanal-and-small-scale mining formalisation registry — through 31 December 2026, or until the new MAPE Law and its regulations enter into force, whichever occurs first. The statute is the parent instrument above DS 009-2025-EM (May 2025) and pushes the formalisation regime — which previously had a 30 June 2025 sunset under Ley 32213 — out by another 18 months. It also (i) orders a national MAPE census run by INEI, MINEM and INGEMMET (to begin within six months and conclude within twelve), (ii) requires REINFO registrants to declare real operational coordinates within 120 days via the Ventanilla Única de Formalización Minera, (iii) compels regional governments to transfer their formalisation paper and digital archives to MINEM within 60 days, and (iv) directs SUNAFIL to issue payroll-compliance verification rules for REINFO holders within 60 days. The law affects ~80,000+ artisanal and small-scale miners and is the statutory ceiling under which Peru's gold and copper-concentrate export chain operates.

Taiwan's Legislative Yuan passed the Artificial Intelligence Basic Act (人工智慧基本法) on third reading on 23 December 2025, and President Lai Ching-te promulgated the 20-article statute on 14 January 2026, bringing it into force immediately. The Act designates the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) as the central AI-policy competent authority and codifies seven governance principles — sustainability and well-being, human autonomy, privacy protection and data governance, cybersecurity and safety, transparency and explainability, fairness and non-discrimination, and accountability — that apply to all public-sector AI procurement and high-risk sectoral applications. The statute establishes a statutory foundation for the Taiwan AI Action Plan 2.0, mandates an Executive Yuan National AI Strategy Committee, and provides authority for sector-specific implementing regulations by FSC, NCC, MOHW, and MOTC across finance, telecoms, medical, and autonomous-vehicle AI within a two-year window. As the first national AI governance statute in the Greater China region and the third globally after the EU AI Act and South Korea's AI Basic Act, it frames regulatory expectations for the companies at the heart of the global AI hardware supply chain — TSMC, NVIDIA ODM partners, and advanced-packaging incumbents — that are headquartered or operate substantially in Taiwan.

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).

Arrêté ministériel n° 00964/CAB.MIN/MINES/01/2025, signed 19 December 2025 by DRC Mines Minister Louis Watum Kabamba, suspends with immediate effect all activities of entities (notably comptoirs d'achat / buying counters, treatment units and similar structures) involved in the purchase, processing, transformation and commercialisation of copper and cobalt minerals sourced from artisanal exploitation across the country. Industrial, legally established mining operators are excluded. The order requires affected entities to submit compliance documentation within ten days, establishes an ad hoc commission to verify administrative, legal, technical and traceability conformity (15-day review window), and obliges operators to demonstrate the lawful origin of their supplies in line with OECD due-diligence guidance. Framed as a "conservatory" measure to restore order in the cupro-cobaltifère value chain and curb illicit exports.

The Overseas Investment (National Interest Test and Other Matters) Amendment Act 2025 (No 81 of 2025) is the largest rewrite of New Zealand's Overseas Investment Act 2005 since the 2018 residential-land amendment. The Bill (Government Bill 171) was introduced by the Minister of Finance in June 2025, passed all three readings in the House of Representatives, received Royal Assent on 19 December 2025, and was brought into force on 6 March 2026 by the Overseas Investment (National Interest Test and Other Matters) Amendment Act 2025 Commencement Order 2026 (SL 2026/2). The Act replaces the OIA's residual "investor test" discretion with a single statutory national-interest test applied to all "sensitive asset" transactions, introduces a new s 29B repeat-investor mechanism (Treasury does not re-litigate investor risk factors on subsequent applications outside strategically important businesses), creates new military / dual-use technology call-in transactions and critical-direct-supplier call-in transactions (amended s 85), and adds a no-change-of-control transaction category. Administered by The Treasury (policy lead) and Toitū Te Whenua LINZ (operations / case handling), with consent decisions issued by the responsible Ministers.

Section 851 of the FY 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (P.L. 119-60), signed December 18, 2025, prohibits US federal agencies from procuring biotechnology equipment or services from designated "biotechnology companies of concern" (BCCs), and bars federal contractors from using such equipment/services in work performed under federal contracts, grants, or loans. The final enacted text ties initial BCC designations to DoD's existing §1260H Chinese-military-company list (which currently includes BGI and MGI, but not WuXi AppTec or WuXi Biologics) and directs OMB to designate additional BCCs within one year of enactment; operational prohibitions activate 60-90 days after FAR revision, with a five-year grandfather period for pre-existing contracts — enforcement is expected to begin in 2027-28. The legislation is the successor to H.R.8333 (118th Congress, House-passed September 2024 but stalled in the Senate before adjournment) and represents the first enacted US federal-procurement biotech-supply-chain-resilience statute.

President Trump signed the Fiscal Year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (P.L. 119-60) into law on 18 December 2025, incorporating the bipartisan DFC Modernization and Reauthorization Act of 2025 (originating as H.R. 5299). The act reauthorizes the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation for six years, through 31 December 2031, and raises its Maximum Contingent Liability lending cap from $60 billion to $205 billion — an increase of over 300%. It also creates a new $5 billion Equity Revolving Fund at the Treasury Department, giving DFC a dedicated capital stream for direct equity investment (previously scored as a loss-making grant expenditure under budget rules), and raises DFC's permitted minority-equity stake in a portfolio company from 30% to 40%.

The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026 (P.L. 119-60), signed into law on 18 December 2025, expands the Department of Defense's existing "covered materials" domestic- sourcing restriction (which already barred DoD contracting for SmCo/NdFeB magnets, tantalum and tungsten sourced from China, Russia, Iran or North Korea) to add gallium, germanium and molybdenum under Section 844. Restrictions on materials "melted or produced" in a covered nation take effect 31 December 2026, widening on 1 January 2027 to also cover materials "mined, refined, or separated" in a covered nation; the gallium/germanium additions specifically phase in on 18 December 2027. The same NDAA bundles two related supply-chain provisions: Section 867 gives DoD broader authority (contracts, grants, other-transaction agreements, equity-style investments, and anti-market-manipulation subsidies) to invest in the domestic industrial base for critical minerals, microelectronics, machine tools and other defense-relevant capacity, and Section 842 bars DoD from procuring advanced batteries whose cells or key components are owned, sourced, refined or produced by a foreign entity of concern, phased in 2028-2031.

Decreto Supremo Nº 5503, signed 17 December 2025 by the Paz administration on its first business day in office, declares a national Economic, Financial, Energy and Social Emergency and enacts a 120-article comprehensive stabilization package. Headline measures: a 15-year fiscal and legal stability guarantee for "strategic" foreign investment in mining, hydrocarbons, energy, agro-industry, infrastructure and export-manufacturing; a fast-track 30-day investment-approval procedure; 0% import tariff on industrial machinery, equipment and key inputs through 2026; accelerated depreciation for 2026 fixed-asset acquisitions (excluding extractive mining and hydrocarbons); discretionary write-off of pre-October 2025 tax interest and penalties; and elimination of fuel subsidies (with a 6-month transition price freeze). The decree restructures Bolivia's investment-incentive architecture and signals a pivot from the Morales/Arce-era resource nationalism toward foreign-capital attraction — directly material for the Salar de Uyuni lithium pipeline (CBC, Uranium One, Citic Guoan tenders).

The European Commission approved a €4.1 billion Hungarian state aid scheme (SA.120705) under Section 6.1 of the Clean Industrial Deal State Aid Framework (CISAF), authorising grants and tax advantages for strategic investments that add cleantech-manufacturing capacity across Hungary through 31 December 2030. Eligible activities cover net-zero technologies listed in Annex II of the CISAF — batteries, solar PV, wind turbines, electrolysers, heat pumps, and CCUS equipment — plus their main specific components and the production or recovery of related critical raw materials. The scheme is open to companies across the whole territory of Hungary and is the CISAF-era successor to Hungary's EUR 2.36 billion TCTF net-zero scheme (approved 2023-08-30, aid deadline 31 December 2025), which channelled the bulk of Chinese and Korean battery/EV-supply-chain FDI into the Debrecen–Szeged–Göd–Nyíregyháza industrial cluster.

On 16 December 2025 the European Commission adopted in Strasbourg the Proposal for a Regulation establishing a framework of measures for strengthening the Union's biotechnology and biomanufacturing sectors particularly in the area of health — the "European Biotech Act" (COM(2025) 1022 final). The proposal is the third axis of the EU's pharma/biotech industrial-policy stack alongside the Critical Medicines Act (filed: 2025-03-11-eu-critical-medicines-act-proposal) and the US Section 232 pharmaceuticals track (filed: 2026-04-02-us-section-232-pharmaceutical-proclamation), and is explicitly designed to keep biotech innovation, investment, and biomanufacturing capacity in Europe in the face of US/China competitiveness pressure. Core instruments: (1) statutory recognition for "Health Biotechnology Strategic Projects" (HBSPs) and "High-Impact" HBSPs eligible for accelerated permitting via a single national contact point, plus administrative/technical/ financial support; (2) regulatory sandboxes for novel biotech and biomanufacturing modalities; (3) a 12-month Supplementary Protection Certificate extension for qualifying biotech and advanced-therapy medicines; (4) targeted simplification of existing EU life-sciences acquis (clinical-trial timelines, risk-proportionate requirements); (5) an EU Health Biotechnology Investment Pilot co-developed with the EIB Group, paired with a EUR 10bn 2026-27 EIB-Commission financing initiative; (6) biosecurity safeguards including a list of "biotechnology products of concern" and mandatory built-in screening for benchtop nucleic-acid synthesis devices. A second tranche covering industrial biotechnologies and biomanufacturing outside health is expected later in 2026.

On 11–12 December 2025, China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) convened a special meeting with major phosphate fertiliser producers, traders, and industry associations, instructing them to suspend phosphate fertiliser exports in principle until August 2026 to concentrate supply on the domestic market and stabilise prices ahead of the 2026 spring planting season. The measure covers diammonium phosphate (DAP), monoammonium phosphate (MAP), triple superphosphate (TSP), and compound NPK fertilisers. China supplied roughly 40% of global phosphate fertiliser exports before the ban; Chinese export volumes in Q1 2025 fell to ~111,000 t versus a three-year average of 785,000 t for the same period.

On 11 December 2025 the Council of the EU presidency, the European Parliament, and the European Commission reached provisional political (trilogue) agreement on the revision of Regulation (EU) 2019/452 establishing a framework for the screening of foreign direct investments into the Union, concluding interinstitutional negotiations on the Commission's proposal of 24 January 2024. The revised regime upgrades the 2019 cooperation-mechanism-only framework into a hybrid harmonised/mandatory regime: all 27 Member States must establish FDI screening mechanisms (replacing the current patchwork in which some Member States have no mechanism at all); mandatory minimum sectoral scope is set EU-wide and covers dual-use items, military equipment, hyper-critical technologies (general-purpose AI with space/defence relevance, quantum technologies, semiconductors), critical raw materials, critical entities in energy/transport/digital infrastructure, electoral infrastructure, and certain financial-system entities; foreign investments routed through EU subsidiaries fall within the perimeter; a shared database prevents Member-State arbitrage; and an optional single electronic-filing portal becomes available if requested by at least nine Member States. Screening decisions remain the exclusive responsibility of the Member State in which the investment is made. Once the Regulation enters into force (after Council and Parliament formal adoption and OJ publication, both pending as of the political-agreement date), the new rules will apply after an 18-month transition period — implementation expected toward the end of 2027.

In the early hours of 11 December 2025 the Council of the EU and the European Parliament reached provisional political agreement in trilogue on the "EU Pharma Package" — the revised pharmaceutical Regulation (COM 2023/0131) and Directive (COM 2023/0132) — the most significant overhaul of EU pharmaceutical legislation in over two decades. The package replaces Directive 2001/83/EC (Community Code on medicinal products for human use) and Regulation (EC) 726/2004 (the EMA Regulation), and consolidates the orphan-medicine (Regulation 141/2000) and pediatric-medicine regulations into a single framework. Headline provisions: (i) a new "8+1(+1)(+1)" IP-incentive architecture — 8 years of regulatory data protection plus 1 year of market protection, with up to two additional 12-month extensions for products addressing unmet medical need or new active substances meeting comparative-trial conditions, capped at 11 years total; (ii) an EU-wide list of critical medicines under enhanced governance via the Medicines Shortages Steering Group (MSSG) and an EMA "list of critical shortages in the EU"; (iii) mandatory shortage-prevention plans on marketing-authorisation holders for prescription medicines and Commission-designated products; (iv) modernisation of clinical-trial requirements, environmental-risk assessment, antimicrobial stewardship, and a transferable-exclusivity-voucher (TEV) regime to incentivise novel antibiotic R&D. The COREPER I committee endorsed the compromise text on 6 March 2026 and final adoption by Parliament and Council is expected during summer 2026, with the regulatory framework becoming applicable in 2028.

Vietnam's 15th National Assembly adopted Law No. 147/2025/QH15 ("Law amending and supplementing some articles of the Law on Geology and Minerals") on 11 December 2025 by 421 of 432 deputies in favour (89.01%), at the 10th session, with effect from 1 January 2026. The amendment slots a dedicated rare-earth framework into the parent Law No. 54/2024/QH15, classifying rare earths as "special strategic" minerals subject to strict state management. Raw rare-earth ore export is prohibited; only state-designated or state-approved enterprises may explore, exploit, process and use rare earths; all activity must conform to a national rare-earth strategy and master plan. The state centralises geological data, regulates rare-earth import/export flows according to national needs, and builds strategic stockpiles. The amendment converts the 2024 framework law's general domestic-supply priority into an explicit raw-export ban for the world's second-largest known rare-earth resource holder.

Vietnam's 15th National Assembly adopted the Law on Investment 2025 (Law No. 143/2025/QH15) at its 10th session on 11 December 2025, effective 1 March 2026. The law replaces the 2020 Law on Investment (Law 61/2020/QH14) as the umbrella FDI framework. Article 19 lets foreign investors establish enterprises in Vietnam without a prior investment project, unlocking holding-company / regional-headquarters structures. A fast-track Special Investment Procedure (SIP) covers industrial parks, export-processing zones, hi-tech parks, concentrated digital-technology zones, free-trade zones, international financial centres and economic-zone functional areas, targeting semiconductor, data-centre and 5G/digital-infrastructure capex. Appendix IV abolishes 38 conditional business sectors and adjusts 20 others (from 1 July 2026 only 199 conditional sectors remain). Operationalised by Decree 96/2026/ND-CP (issued and effective 31 March 2026) and Decree 103/2026/ND-CP for outbound investment.

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.

On 10 December 2025 the European Commission opened an in-depth investigation under the Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR) — its first ex officio Phase II investigation — into whether Chinese state-controlled security-scanner producer Nuctech received foreign subsidies enabling it to offer prices and conditions that EU competitors could not match across airport, port, and border-crossing markets. Nuctech Technology, controlled by Tsinghua Tongfang (PRC state-linked), operates EU subsidiaries in Poland and the Netherlands (Nuctech Warsaw and Nuctech Netherlands), supplying threat-detection scanners to roughly 80% of EU airports and 70% of EU sea and land border crossings. The case (FS.100068) followed April 2024 unannounced FSR dawn raids at Nuctech's Polish and Dutch premises — one of the first uses of FSR inspection powers — and sets a precedent for ex officio scrutiny of state-subsidised foreign incumbents beyond the M&A and public-procurement tracks where FSR had previously operated.

On 10 December 2025 the National Assembly of Vietnam adopted Law No. 134/2025/QH15 on Artificial Intelligence (8 chapters, 35 articles), Vietnam's first dedicated AI statutory framework and one of the first comprehensive horizontal AI laws in Southeast Asia. The law establishes a three-tier risk-based regulatory architecture (high / medium / low) for the research, development, provision, deployment, and use of AI systems; defines the rights and obligations of providers, deployers, importers, distributors, and users; and mandates state oversight via the Ministry of Information & Communications and Ministry of Science & Technology. Prohibited acts include systematic deception, manipulation of human perception, generation of fake content endangering national security, exploitation of vulnerable populations, and obstruction of human-supervision mechanisms. The law applies to Vietnamese agencies, organizations, and individuals as well as foreign organizations and individuals involved in AI-related activities in Vietnam, taking effect 1 March 2026 with 12-18 month transition windows for existing systems depending on sector.

Vietnam's National Assembly passed Law on Cybersecurity No. 116/2025/QH15 on 10 December 2025 (434 of 443 deputies in favour), effective 1 July 2026. The law supersedes both the 2018 Cybersecurity Law (Law 24/2018/QH14) and the 2015 Law on Cyber Information Security, consolidating cybersecurity, cyber-information-security, and network-information-security into a unified Ministry of Public Security-led framework. It retains data-localization obligations for foreign digital-service providers handling personal data, user-generated content, and relationship graphs of Vietnamese users (minimum 24-month retention), introduces 6-hour urgent / 24-hour standard content take-down windows on MPS request, expressly prohibits AI/deepfake forgery of images, voices, and videos for illegal purposes, and mandates child-safety platform measures.

On 9 December 2025, China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) and General Administration of Customs jointly issued Announcement No. 79 of 2025, reinstating an export-licence management system for ~300 HS-coded steel products effective 1 January 2026. Exporters must obtain a per-contract licence supported by a manufacturer-issued product quality inspection certificate; licences are issued by MOFCOM (for centrally-administered SOEs) and provincial / sub-provincial commerce departments. The regime is the first reinstatement of Chinese steel-export licensing in 16 years (since 2009) and applies the export-licensing instrument — previously used for critical minerals and dual-use goods — to a non-critical bulk commodity for the first time.

On 8 December 2025 the Council of the EU gave final approval to Regulation (EU) 2025/2643 establishing the European Defence Industry Programme (EDIP), the first dedicated EU defence-industrial regulation. The regulation was signed on 17 December 2025 and entered into force on 30 December 2025 following publication in the Official Journal. EDIP provides EUR 1.5bn in grants for 2025-2027 plus an earmarked EUR 300m Ukraine Support Instrument, sets a statutory cap limiting non-EU/EEA components to 35% of estimated component cost in end-products procured with Union funding, and creates EU-level demand-aggregation, common procurement and security-of-supply frameworks for defence products.

On 2025-12-08 President Trump and USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins announced a one-time USD 12 billion Farmer Bridge Payments package for US row-crop and specialty-crop producers, framed as relief for market disruption, elevated input costs, and export losses tied to "years of failed trade and economic policies." Up to USD 11 billion funds the new Farmer Bridge Assistance (FBA) Program covering barley, chickpeas, corn, cotton, lentils, oats, peanuts, peas, rice, sorghum, soybeans, wheat, canola, crambe, flax, mustard, rapeseed, safflower, sesame and sunflower; the remaining USD 1 billion is reserved for specialty crops and sugar. USDA published final per-acre payment rates on 2025-12-31 (e.g. rice USD 132.89/acre, cotton USD 117.35, corn USD 44.36, soybeans USD 30.88, wheat USD 39.35), with payments subject to a USD 900,000 AGI cap and a USD 155,000 per-person/entity payment limit, and disbursement targeted by 2026-02-28.

On 4 December 2025, the United States and the Democratic Republic of the Congo signed a Strategic Partnership Agreement on Trade and Investment, executed at a White House trilateral ceremony alongside the parallel U.S.-Rwanda framework and witnessed by President Trump, President Tshisekedi (DRC), and President Kagame (Rwanda). The Agreement creates a Strategic Minerals Reserve (SMR) and a Strategic Asset Reserve (SAR) under DRC sovereignty, gives U.S. persons preferential access to SAR assets, and commits DRC and its state-owned enterprises to route at least 30% of their commercialised cobalt volumes through the Sakania-Lobito Corridor within five years. A Joint Steering Committee (JSC) co-chaired by State and DRC's Ministry of Economy holds its inaugural meeting on 4-5 February 2026, designating the initial SAR asset list and launching implementation. The DFC announced a proposed equity investment in a Gécamines-Mercuria copper/cobalt joint venture as the first commercial vehicle under the framework.

The Ivorian Council of Ministers adopted on 3 December 2025 the Politique Intégrée des Ressources Minérales et de l'Énergie (PIRME), a 15-year cross-sector extractive and energy industrial-policy strategy requiring CFA 38,000 billion (~USD 68bn) across three five-year phases to 2040. The policy targets doubling the mining-energy sector's GDP contribution from 7% (2022) to 14% by 2040, positioning it as the economy's second pillar after agriculture. Core mandates include a 50% local transformation target for gold, a 10 million-tonne iron-ore production target, a 500,000 bbl/day oil production target, 45% renewable energy integration, and a 38% reduction in energy-sector emissions — backed by national-content and value-addition requirements across mining, hydrocarbons, and electricity sub-sectors.

On 3 December 2025 the European Commission adopted the RESourceEU Action Plan (COM(2025) 945 final), a horizontal critical-raw-materials supply-security instrument complementing the 2023 Critical Raw Materials Act. The plan mobilises €3 billion in EU funds within twelve months for priority CRM projects, creates a European Critical Raw Materials Centre operational from 2026 (modelled on Japan's JOGMEC) acting as portfolio manager for diversified supply chains, joint purchasing and stockpiling, and activates the Internal Market Emergency and Resilience Act (IMERA) "vigilance" and "emergency" modes from May 2026 with mandatory information requests, priority deliveries and coordinated stockpile distribution. A targeted CRMA amendment expands product labelling for permanent-magnet recycling and adds export controls on permanent-magnet and aluminium scrap. Targets a 30-50% reduction by 2029 in single-country dependency for battery, rare-earth and defence raw-material value chains.

On 3 December 2025 President Pedro Sánchez presented the Plan España Auto 2030, a five-year roadmap to mobilise EUR 30 bn (public + private) through 2030 to anchor electric-vehicle, battery and charging- infrastructure manufacturing in Spain. The plan is the first comprehensive Spanish auto-industrial policy of the post-COVID era and is structured as three immediate 2026 envelopes plus a multi-year PERTE-track: (i) Plan Auto+ — EUR 400 m in direct consumer-purchase subsidies effective 1 January 2026, replacing the autonomous-region- managed MOVES III with a centralised dealer-discount model run by MINCOTUR; (ii) MOVES Corredores — EUR 300 m for fast-charging-corridor deployment; and (iii) an additional EUR 580 m allocated to the PERTE VEC (Vehículo Eléctrico y Conectado) industrial-finance instrument in 2026, on top of the EUR ~3 bn already mobilised across previous PERTE VEC calls. The headline ambition is a sub-EUR 25,000 "affordable Spanish electric car" and 95% electrified light-vehicle production by 2035.

On 26 November 2025 Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a package of measures to protect Canada's steel and softwood lumber industries, effective 26 December 2025. For steel, Canada tightened the tariff-rate quota (TRQ) available to countries without a Canada free trade agreement from 50% to 20% of 2024 import levels, and cut the TRQ for FTA partners outside CUSMA (i.e. not the US/Mexico) from 100% to 75% of 2024 levels; imports above quota face a 50% surtax. A new 25% tariff on the full value of listed steel-derivative products (doors, windows, fasteners, structural components and related goods) applies to all countries, covering an estimated CAD 10 billion+ of derivative imports. For softwood lumber, Canada added CAD 500 million to the BDC Softwood Lumber Guarantee Program (bringing it to CAD 1.2 billion) and earmarked a further CAD 500 million under the Large Enterprise Tariff Loan facility for lumber-sector liquidity support.

On 26 November 2025 the Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved a Rs 7,280 crore (~USD 800 million) scheme to establish 6,000 MTPA of integrated sintered Rare Earth Permanent Magnet (REPM) manufacturing capacity in India. The Ministry of Heavy Industries will allocate capacity to five beneficiaries (up to 1,200 MTPA each) via global competitive bidding. The package combines a Rs 6,450 crore sales-linked incentive (PLI-style, paid on REPM sales over 5 years) with a Rs 750 crore capital subsidy for facility build-out. The scheme runs 7 years from award (2-year gestation + 5-year disbursement) and covers the full value chain from rare-earth oxides through metals, alloys, to finished sintered Nd-Fe-B and SmCo magnets.

On 26 November 2025, Scotland's Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Gaelic, Kate Forbes MSP, wrote to the Scottish Parliament's Economy and Fair Work Committee confirming that the preferred bidder for Glasgow Prestwick Airport had withdrawn from the sale process after a "robust commercial deal" had been negotiated. The letter discloses that the proposed acquisition was subject to mandatory notification to the UK Government under the National Security and Investment Act 2021, a reserved matter on which Scottish Ministers cannot comment. Media reporting (Global Trade Alert; Daily Business) identifies the withdrawn bidder as Turkish conglomerate Limak Holding and attributes the collapse directly to the UK national-security review process ("Westminster officials opening an investigation"). The airport, which employs over 500 people directly and anchors an Ayrshire aerospace cluster, remains in Scottish Government public ownership.

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.

The UAE Cabinet, chaired by Vice President and Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum at a special meeting during the Dubai Airshow, approved the establishment of a National Investment Fund with initial capital of AED 36.7 billion (~USD 10 billion), open to future review and expansion. The Fund provides financial incentive packages to companies capable of delivering significant economic impact, via direct federal-level financing and cooperation with emirate-level economic, investment and tourism authorities. It targets raising annual FDI inflows from AED 115bn to AED 240bn, and cumulative FDI stock from AED 800bn to AED 2.2 trillion, by 2031.

ECOFIN on 12 December 2025 adopted a Council Implementing Decision approving the 4th amendment to Poland's National Recovery and Resilience Plan (Krajowy Plan Odbudowy, KPO), following Commission proposal C(2025) 7998 final of 19 November 2025. The amendment modifies 80 measures within the plan while keeping Poland's total financial contribution under the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) unchanged at EUR 25,276,853,716 in grants, alongside an estimated EUR 20.6 bn REPowerEU chapter envelope. Adopted in parallel with amendments for Austria, Cyprus, Czechia, France, Greece, Latvia, Malta, Portugal and Slovenia, this amendment continues the structural pivot — first opened by the May 2025 third amendment — that allows Poland to redirect post-COVID recovery funds toward defence-industrial and dual-use spending given the NATO eastern-flank context.

On 18 November 2025, the European Supervisory Authorities (EBA, ESMA, and EIOPA) jointly designated 19 Critical ICT Third-Party Providers (CTPPs) under DORA Article 31, with immediate effect — the first-ever exercise of direct EU financial-regulator supervision over hyperscale cloud and infrastructure providers. The designated entities include Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Deutsche Telekom, Oracle, SAP, IBM, Bloomberg LP, London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), Tata Consultancy Services, and Orange, among others. Designation triggers direct oversight by a lead ESA (EBA for banking-critical, ESMA for capital-markets-critical, EIOPA for insurance-critical) via Joint Examination Teams (JETs), with powers to conduct investigations, carry out on-site inspections, and impose fines of up to 1% of average daily worldwide turnover per day for non-compliance.

On 18 November 2025, during Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's White House visit (17-19 November 2025), the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia signed a Strategic Framework for Cooperation on Securing Uranium, Metals, Permanent Magnets, and Critical Minerals Supply Chains. The framework was signed by US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum and Saudi Minister of Energy H.R.H. Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, and positions Saudi Arabia (via Ma'aden + Public Investment Fund vehicles) as a regional hub for processing rare earths and producing permanent magnets, supports a US-backed rare-earths refinery in the Kingdom, and channels Saudi capital — alongside the broader USD ~1 trillion Saudi investment commitment in the US announced the same week — into US and allied critical-mineral projects. It is paired with a separate joint declaration on civil nuclear cooperation (Section 123 Agreement contemplated) and was operationalised one day later by the 19 November 2025 binding term sheet between MP Materials, the US Department of War, and Ma'aden to develop a rare-earth refinery in Saudi Arabia (Department of War financing the US side's 49% stake; Ma'aden retaining ≥51%).

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.

India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) notified the Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025 via Gazette notification G.S.R. 846(E) on 13 November 2025, operationalising the 2023 DPDP Act. The Rules introduce a "negative list" cross-border personal-data transfer regime under Rule 14, verifiable parental consent, breach-notification windows, and tiered penalties up to INR 250 crore. Implementation is phased: Data Protection Board provisions in force on notification, Consent Manager rules from 13 Nov 2026, and core data-fiduciary / cross-border-transfer obligations from 13 May 2027.

On 13 November 2025, the United States and the Republic of Korea released a Joint Fact Sheet reaffirming the July 2025 announcement of the Korea Strategic Trade and Investment Deal — the first standalone US-Korea trade-and-investment agreement since the 2012 KORUS FTA. USTR issued the implementing Federal Register notice (90 FR 55964, Notice 2025-21940) on 3 December 2025, effective 4 December 2025, with retroactive HTSUS application to 1 November 2025 for autos and auto parts and to 14 November 2025 for reciprocal-tariff goods, timber, lumber, derivatives, and certain aircraft and aircraft parts. On the US tariff side: (i) the country-specific IEEPA reciprocal tariff on Korean originating goods is set at the higher of the KORUS FTA / MFN rate or 15% (parallel to the Japan and EU framework deals); (ii) the Section 232 tariffs on autos, auto parts, timber, lumber and wood derivatives are reduced to 15% (no incremental duty when the pre-existing KORUS/MFN rate already meets or exceeds 15%); (iii) Korean exports of qualifying goods on the Potential Tariff Adjustments for Aligned Partners (PTAAP) list are exempt from reciprocal tariffs (covering generic pharmaceuticals and unavailable natural resources); (iv) Section 232 pharmaceuticals capped at 15%; semiconductors granted MFN-style "no less favourable" treatment in any future sectoral deal. On the investment side, Korea commits to a USD 350bn package: USD 150bn into US shipbuilding ("Approved Investments") plus USD 200bn into US strategic industries via a separate Strategic Investments MOU, with annual currency-funding cap of USD 20bn. Non-tariff commitments include streamlined US biotech approvals on the Korean side, US meat and cheese market access, fair treatment for US digital services, removal of Korea's 50,000-unit cap on US vehicles meeting FMVSS, and joint WTO support for the moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions.

Germany's transposition of EU Directive 2022/2555 (NIS2), enacted as the "Gesetz zur Umsetzung der NIS-2-Richtlinie und zur Regelung wesentlicher Grundzüge des Informationssicherheitsmanagements in der Bundesverwaltung." Bundestag passage 13 November 2025; Bundesrat approval 21 November 2025; published as BGBl. I 2025 Nr. 301 on 5 December 2025; entered into force 6 December 2025. The statute designates the Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik (BSI) as the central national supervisory authority over an estimated 29,500 covered entities across 18 critical and important sectors, introduces a mandatory 24h initial / 72h detailed / 1-month final cyber-incident reporting cascade, establishes board-level personal liability for senior management, and applies to SME critical- infrastructure suppliers — with no transitional grace period from entry into force.

On 5 February 2026, USTR Ambassador Jamieson Greer and Argentine Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno signed in Washington the United States-Argentina Agreement on Reciprocal Trade and Investment (ARTI), formalising the framework jointly announced on 13 November 2025. The agreement is the first standalone bilateral trade-and-investment instrument concluded by the second Trump administration and the first FTA-style agreement signed under the post-IEEPA reciprocal-tariff architecture (Executive Order 14257, "Liberation Day"). On the US side, the ARTI sets out three tariff schedules: (i) Schedule 2A suspends additional reciprocal tariffs under EO 14257 for specified Argentine-origin goods (covering "unavailable natural resources" and non-patented pharmaceutical inputs); (ii) Schedule 2B grants a zero additional reciprocal tariff for designated Argentine agricultural products under EO 14360; and (iii) caps additional ad-valorem duties on other goods at 10% above MFN rates, inclusive of IEEPA reciprocal tariffs. On the Argentine side, illustrative tariff-rate quotas include duty-free access for 80,000 MT of US beef in calendar year 2026, 1,000 MT for cheese, 870 MT for almonds, 40 MT in-shell + 40 MT shelled for pistachios, 80,000 litres for wine (<2 L bottles), and preferential treatment for 10,000 motor vehicles meeting defined technical parameters. Argentina additionally commits to broader preferential market access on medicines, chemicals, machinery, information-technology products, medical devices, and a wide range of agricultural goods, alongside IP-enforcement upgrades (counterfeit/pirated-goods enforcement, patentability criteria, patent-backlog reduction, geographical indications) and investment-facilitation commitments that align Argentina's regime with US-preferred standards on regulatory cooperation, labour and environment.