Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2663 actions· ✨ 89 recent

On 17 May 2026, Treasurer Jim Chalmers signed the Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers (Disposal of Interests in Northern Minerals Limited) Orders (No. 1) 2026 (F2026N00326), directing six China-linked foreign investors to divest a combined 1,678,895,780 shares in Northern Minerals Limited (ASX: NTU) within 14 days of the Orders commencing on 18 June 2026. The six named investors are: Real International Resources Limited (619.1m shares), Qogir Trading and Service Co. Limited (523.5m), Vastness Investment Group Limited (271.3m), Chuanyou Cong (130.1m), Hong Kong Ying Tak Limited (95.3m), and Zhongxiong Lin (39.7m), together representing approximately 17.6% of NTU's total shares. NTU owns the Browns Range Heavy Rare Earths Project in Western Australia, one of the few ex-China commercial-scale dysprosium and terbium deposits. These orders are the second tranche of Treasurer-forced divestment of Chinese shareholders in NTU, distinct from the AUD 14 million Federal Court penalty imposed on Indian Ocean International Shipping in January 2026 for non-compliance with the June 2024 disposal orders.

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.

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.

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.

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.