Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2667 actions· ✨ 89 recent

At the APEC Busan summit on 30 October 2025, Presidents Trump and Xi reached the "Economic and Trade Arrangement Between the United States and the People's Republic of China," subsequently implemented on the US side by the executive order "Modifying Reciprocal Tariff Rates Consistent with the Economic and Trade Arrangement" (issued 4 November 2025; effective 12:01 am EST on 10 November 2025; published in the Federal Register on 7 November 2025 as 90 FR 50729 / 2025-19826) and on the Chinese side by a series of MOFCOM and State Council Tariff Commission announcements (notably MOFCOM 2025 No. 90 of 8–9 November 2025). The arrangement is structurally parallel to the already-filed US-Japan, US-Korea and US-Taiwan framework deals but uniquely material because it freezes the highest-stakes bilateral tariff and export-control confrontation of the post-2024 reset. Core US commitments: (i) reciprocal-tariff "additional ad valorem rate of duty" on PRC-origin goods reduced from a prior 20% IEEPA-fentanyl + 10% IEEPA-reciprocal stack to a 10% rate (i.e., the prior 24% / 34% scheduled escalation is suspended), extended through 10 November 2026; (ii) US BIS suspends the so-called "affiliates rule" expanding entity-list controls to majority-owned subsidiaries of listed Chinese firms; (iii) USTR pauses Section 301 maritime / shipbuilding / logistics countermeasures against Chinese vessels for one year. Core PRC commitments: (i) MOFCOM suspends for one year (until 10 November 2026) the 9 October 2025 extraterritorial rare-earth export-control package — including controls on REE processing equipment, lithium-battery manufacturing equipment, and superhard materials; (ii) PRC suspends retaliatory tariffs on a broad swath of US agricultural products through 31 December 2026; (iii) commitment to purchase ≥25 million metric tonnes of US soybeans annually in 2026-2028 and to resume sorghum and log imports; (iv) suspension of MOFCOM antitrust and "unreliable-entity" probes against named US semiconductor and chip-equipment companies; (v) cooperation on fentanyl precursor enforcement. The arrangement does not repeal underlying authorities (IEEPA tariffs, MOFCOM export-control list, Entity List) — it is a calibrated mutual freeze with a one-year sunset and quarterly review checkpoints.

Yacimientos de Litio Bolivianos (YLB), Bolivia's state lithium SOE, signed a USD 1.030bn services contract on 26 November 2024 with Hong Kong CBC Investment Ltd. (a CATL-CMOC-BRUNP consortium) to build and operate two direct-lithium-extraction (DLE) plants on the Salar de Uyuni — one rated at 10,000 t/yr and one at 25,000 t/yr lithium carbonate, for combined 35,000 t/yr nameplate capacity. Bolivia retains a 51% sovereign share through YLB; CBC supplies financing, EDL technology and offtake. The contract was transmitted to the Asamblea Legislativa Plurinacional and the Chamber of Deputies' Plural Economy, Production and Industry Commission approved it by majority in mid-2025 (Bill No. 197/2024-2025); full plenary ratification remained pending as of May 2026, with a parallel Colcha K mixed-court suspension order on FPIC (free, prior and informed consent) grounds.

On 20 April 2022 Mexico's Diario Oficial de la Federación published a reform to the Ley Minera (Mining Law) declaring lithium "patrimonio de la Nación" (national patrimony) and of public utility, adding Article 5 Bis to state that no further concessions, licenses, contracts, permits or authorizations for lithium exploration, exploitation, benefit or use will be granted to private parties — reserving the entire value chain exclusively to the State (Articles 1, 9 and 10 also amended). On 23 August 2022 a follow-on decree created "Litio para México" (LitioMx), a decentralized public agency governed by a board of five cabinet secretaries (Energy as chair, plus Finance, Economy, Interior and Environment) and technically supported by the Mexican Geological Service, holding exclusive rights to explore, exploit and commercialize Mexico's lithium deposits. The law was subsequently upheld as constitutional by Mexico's Supreme Court in March 2026 (Acción de Inconstitucionalidad 78/2022, filed separately).