Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2666 actions· ✨ 90 recent

The European Commission on 4 March 2026 adopted COM(2026) 100 final, the proposed Industrial Accelerator Act (IAA), the central horizontal industrial- policy instrument of the 2024-29 Commission term. The proposal targets raising EU manufacturing's share of GDP from 14.3% (2024) to at least 20% by 2035 via three pillars: (i) demand-side "Made in EU" and low-carbon public-procurement preferences for strategic sectors; (ii) FDI conditionality on investments above €100 million from countries with >40% global manufacturing share in batteries, EVs, solar PV or critical raw materials; (iii) accelerated permitting through a one-stop-shop and member-state-designated Industrial Acceleration Areas. The IAA is a proposal — co-decision adoption is expected mid-to-late 2027.

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.

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.

H.R.1, the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" (Public Law 119-21), was signed into law by President Trump on 4 July 2025. The budget-reconciliation statute is the single largest reversal of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) industrial-policy framework: it accelerates the termination of IRA-era clean- energy tax credits and overlays a new "Foreign Entity of Concern" (FEOC) / "Prohibited Foreign Entity" (PFE) regime on the credits that survive. The §25E used-EV credit, the §30D new clean-vehicle credit, the §45W commercial clean-vehicle credit, and the §30C alternative-fuel-refueling-property credit terminate for vehicles or property placed in service after 30 September 2025. The §25C energy-efficient home improvement credit and the §25D residential clean-energy credit terminate for property placed in service after 31 December 2025. The §45Y clean-electricity production credit and §48E clean-electricity investment credit are eliminated for wind and solar facilities placed in service after 31 December 2027, with a safe harbour for projects whose construction begins on or before 4 July 2026. From 1 January 2026, projects beginning construction must satisfy "material assistance" thresholds limiting the share of components, subcomponents and critical minerals sourced from prohibited foreign entities (PRC, Russia, Iran, DPRK and entities controlled by them). For §45Y/§48E facilities the threshold starts at 40% non-PFE content in 2026 and steps up by 5 percentage points per year through 2030; for §45X advanced manufacturing PTC the analogous schedule begins at 50% in 2026 and rises through the decade. CBO scored the package's energy-credit terminations as generating roughly USD 280bn of revenue (gross), of which USD 77.4bn from §25D termination, USD 21.2bn from §25C, USD 77.8bn from §30D, USD 104.5bn from §45W, and USD 2bn from §30C, partially offsetting the bill's other tax cuts. The bill simultaneously re-authorises and broadens the §48D advanced manufacturing investment tax credit for semiconductor fabs, raising the credit rate from 25% to 35% for property placed in service after 31 December 2025 (preserving the CHIPS Act-aligned semiconductor leg of the IRA-era stack). The OBBBA therefore reshapes the IRA from a broad-based clean-energy + EV + manufacturing pull-through into a narrower, China-decoupling industrial policy concentrated on semiconductors and (residually) §45X battery / critical- mineral processing.

On 8 May 2025 the Verkhovna Rada ratified the 30 April 2025 Washington intergovernmental agreement establishing the U.S.-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund (draft law 0309, 338 of 450 MPs in favour); President Zelenskyy signed the ratification law on 12 May 2025. On 4 June 2025 the Rada then adopted in second reading and as a whole the implementing amendments to the Budget Code of Ukraine (draft law 13256, 309 MPs in favour), which credit half of royalties from new licences for the extraction of minerals of national importance (per Annex A of Cabinet Resolution 845) and half of state share revenues under new production-sharing agreements to a State Budget special fund earmarked for transfer to the joint Fund. The Fund is jointly managed 50/50 by the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and a Ukrainian state entity, gives the US first-look preferential access to new lithium, titanium, REE, graphite, uranium and oil-and-gas projects, and is the structural anchor of the 2025 US critical-minerals pivot away from China.

On 5 March 2025 the European Commission adopted Communication COM(2025) 95 final, the "Industrial Action Plan for the European Automotive Sector", a horizontal sectoral industrial-policy framework structured around five pillars: innovation and digitalisation, clean mobility, competitiveness and supply-chain resilience, skills and the social dimension, and a global level playing field. Headline financial commitments include EUR 1bn under Horizon Europe for SDV/AI in mobility (2025-2027), EUR 1.8bn Innovation Fund earmark for EU battery cell manufacturing, EUR 350m for next-generation battery R&D (2025-2027), and EUR 570m under the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Facility (2025-2026) for heavy-duty charging corridors. The plan also delivers a targeted CO2-standards flexibility allowing 2025-2027 combined-year compliance for cars and vans, and the launch of the European Connected and Autonomous Vehicle Alliance.

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.

Loi n°016-2024/ALT was unanimously adopted by Burkina Faso's Assemblée Législative de Transition on 18 July 2024 and promulgated on 31 July 2024 under the Traoré military-transition government. The 309-article statute replaces Loi n°036-2015/CNT (26 July 2015) and its amendment Loi n°012-2023/ALT (25 July 2023), and is the central legal vehicle for the junta's resource-nationalism agenda. Headline structural changes raise the state's free-carried interest in any new mining venture from 10% to 15% (Article 66) and grant an additional ~30% paid-participation right that may be exercised by the state or a state-mandated investor; mineral processing and sales — notably gold — now require prior administrative authorization; domestic-investor capital-opening, local content, and overproduction penalties are strengthened. Four implementing decrees (mining-title procedures, mining taxes/royalties, sector-approval conditions, capital opening to national investors) were under validation as of October 2024 and are required for full effect.

Décret n°2024-0396/PT-RM of 9 July 2024 fixes the conditions and modalities for applying Loi n°2023-040 of 29 August 2023 (the new Code Minier of the Republic of Mali). The decree, adopted in Council of Ministers on 3 July 2024 and signed by the transition presidency, operationalises the 2023 statute that replaces the 2019 mining code (Loi n°2019-022). The new framework raises maximum cumulative state-plus-Malian-private participation in mining ventures to roughly 30–35% (10% free-carry to the state, plus an additional 20% paid participation right and 5% reserved to local private investors), reshapes the fiscal regime (royalties, taxes, exemptions) for new permits and conventions, and pairs with companion local-content Loi n°2023-041 of the same date. The 2024 implementing decree is the operative trigger date for downstream investor disputes (Barrick Loulo-Gounkoto suspension, B2Gold Fekola contract renegotiations, Allied Gold Sadiola, Ganfeng Goulamina lithium ramp).

On 13 March 2024 the State Council issued the Action Plan on Promoting Large-Scale Equipment Renewal and Consumer Goods Trade-In as Guo Fa [2024] No. 7, distributed by NDRC alongside ten implementing ministries. Branded the "Two New" (两新) initiative, it is the flagship Xi/Li-era domestic-demand industrial-policy instrument structured around four action lines (equipment renewal, consumer-goods trade-in, recycling and circular utilisation, standards uplift) with twenty specific tasks and 2027 quantitative targets including ≥25% increase in equipment investment vs 2023 across industry, agriculture, construction, transport, education and healthcare. Funded by CNY 150bn of ultra-long-term special treasury bonds in 2024, expanded to CNY 300bn earmarked in 2025, the programme drove >CNY 1.3 trillion of consumer-goods trade-in transactions (autos, appliances, home furnishings, e-bikes) in its first year and is the central pillar of Beijing's response to the property-sector slowdown.

Loi n° 2023-040 of 29 August 2023, adopted by the Conseil National de Transition (CNT) and promulgated by the Président de la Transition Colonel Assimi Goïta, repeals and replaces the prior Mali Code Minier (Ordonnance n° 2019-022/P-RM du 27 septembre 2019) and constitutes the foundational mining statute for all mineral-title issuance, foreign-investment participation, fiscal architecture, and state-control mechanisms in the Republic of Mali. Key structural innovations include a 35% Malian-side equity floor (10% free-carry to the state + 20% paid- participation option + 5% reserved to local Malian private investors), a special permitting regime for substances minérales d'intérêt stratégique (lithium, uranium, thorium, tungsten, tantalite, cobalt, and rare-earth elements), and zones d'intérêt stratégique reserved for the state and state-controlled vehicles. The Code is the parent statute under which Décret n° 2024-0396/PT-RM (the 2024 implementing decree) and Loi n° 2023-041 (the companion local-content law) operate, and under which the Barrick Loulo-Gounkoto standoff, B2Gold Fekola renegotiation, Allied Gold Sadiola settlement, and Ganfeng Goulamina fiscal escalation are situated.

Statutory Instrument 5 of 2023, gazetted by Zimbabwe's Ministry of Mines and Mining Development, banned the export of unbeneficiated ("raw" / unprocessed) base mineral ores from Zimbabwe, widening the December 2022 lithium-only export ban (SI 213 of 2022) into a horizontal ban covering the entire base-minerals category — including lithium, chrome, copper, nickel and coal — while excluding precious metals, precious stones, oil and natural gas. Exporters need a written ministerial permit, granted only where compelling reasons show the ore cannot be beneficiated inside Zimbabwe, or for small assay samples. Non-compliance carries a level-9 fine or twice the mineral's value (whichever is greater), up to two years' imprisonment, or both. SI 5 was itself amended three months later by SI 57 of 2023, which layered lithium-specific citizenship and beneficiation-plant conditions onto this base order.

The Inflation Reduction Act (Public Law 117-169), signed by President Biden on 16 August 2022, contains the largest single package of clean-energy and clean-manufacturing subsidies in US history — Congressional Budget Office scored the energy and climate provisions at $369B over 10 years, with subsequent Treasury / academic estimates reaching $800B-$1.2T as uptake exceeded baseline. Core mechanisms include the Section 30D Clean Vehicle credit ($7,500 per qualifying EV), the Section 45X Advanced Manufacturing Production Credit (per-unit credits for domestically-produced battery cells, modules, electrodes, and critical-mineral processing), the Section 48E Clean Electricity Investment Credit, and the Section 45V Clean Hydrogen Production Credit. Critically, the law contains Foreign Entity of Concern (FEOC) provisions barring credit eligibility for vehicles or components linked to entities controlled by China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea.

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).

The Defense Production Act of 1950 (Pub. L. 81-774, 64 Stat. 798, codified at 50 U.S.C. §§4501–4568) is the foundational US statute governing wartime and emergency industrial mobilization. Signed by President Truman on 8 September 1950 during the Korean War, the Act empowers the President to compel industrial priority-rated ordering (Title I / DPAS), authorize direct investment in domestic production capacity for critical industries (Title III), and conduct investment security review (Title VII, precursor to CFIUS). Reauthorized approximately 50 times, most recently extended through September 2025 by Pub. L. 115-263 (2018) and further extended under NDAA FY2026; it has been invoked by every Administration since 1950 and has accelerated dramatically since 2020 to target critical-minerals processing, semiconductor manufacturing, battery supply chains, biopharmaceuticals, and energy infrastructure.