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President Trump signed Executive Order 14323, "Addressing Threats to the United States by the Government of Brazil," on 30 July 2025 (published in the Federal Register on 5 August 2025 as FR doc 2025-14896). Invoking IEEPA and the National Emergencies Act, the order declared a country- specific national emergency citing "policies, practices, and actions" of the Lula government — including the criminal prosecution of former president Jair Bolsonaro, asserted infringement of the free-expression rights of US persons via DSA-style platform-content rules, and retaliatory measures targeting US digital firms — as constituting an "unusual and extraordinary threat" to US national security, foreign policy, and economy. The EO imposed a 40% additional ad valorem duty on Brazilian-origin goods effective for entries on or after 12:01 a.m. EDT on 6 August 2025; stacked on top of the 10% baseline reciprocal rate from EO 14257/14326, the cumulative rate reached 50% for non- exempt goods. Annex I exempted civil aircraft and parts, orange juice, certain machinery, certain metals, and energy/energy products. The EO was amended on 20 November 2025 (effective for entries on or after 13 November 2025) to exempt 238+ HTSUS codes for agricultural products (beef, tropical produce, nuts, coffee, cocoa, cassava derivatives, etc.) following initial Trump-Lula bilateral negotiations on 6 October 2025. The IEEPA-tariff component was terminated by EO of 20 February 2026 ("Ending Certain Tariff Actions") within hours of the SCOTUS 6-3 ruling in *Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump* holding that IEEPA does not authorize the imposition of tariffs.

Ghana's Parliament passed the Ghana Gold Board Act, 2025 (Act 1140) on 29 March 2025; presidential assent followed on 2 April 2025, with full operational effect from 1 May 2025. The Act repeals PNDCL 219 (1989) and establishes the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) as the sole statutory licensor and exclusive primary buyer, seller, assayer, grader, weigher and exporter of all gold produced by the country's licensed Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining (ASM) sector. Large-scale mining operations remain outside the monopsony. Effective 1 May 2025, no person other than GoldBod may export ASM gold from Ghana, and all gold trading and marketing businesses must hold a GoldBod licence (application window for Ghanaian-owned firms opened 22 April 2025). Proceeds from all ASM gold exports settle through the Bank of Ghana, channelling foreign-exchange flows from roughly 30% of national gold output — Ghana is the world's #6 producer and Africa's largest — into formal central-bank reserves. The stated objectives are to combat smuggling, capture the smuggling-loss premium for the state, support Bank of Ghana gold-reserves accumulation, and generate foreign exchange. The Act sits alongside the Bank of Ghana's Domestic Gold Purchase Programme as the legal infrastructure for Ghana's gold-as-reserve-asset strategy.

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).

The Pleno of Panama's Supreme Court of Justice unanimously declared Law 406 of 20 October 2023 — which ratified the renewed mining-concession contract between the Panamanian State and Minera Panamá S.A. (a subsidiary of Canada's First Quantum Minerals) — unconstitutional in its entirety. The ruling, delivered 27 November 2023 and published in Gaceta Oficial No. 29922 on 2 December 2023, found violations of 25 constitutional articles and ordered the orderly closure of the Cobre Panamá open-pit copper mine, which had produced ~350,000 t/yr of copper (~1% of global mined supply) and accounted for ~5% of Panama's GDP. The decision triggered a de-facto Panama-wide moratorium on new large-scale metals concessions and pending ICSID arbitration claims by First Quantum and Korea Resources / KORES (COFINPRO).

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.