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

Russia's Government adopted Resolution N° 1958 on 29 November 2025, amending Resolution N° 313 of 9 March 2022 to add eight commodity positions to Appendix 3 — the list of dual-use goods banned for export to "unfriendly" states. The added items are specialty electro-optical and semiconductor materials: lithium niobate, zinc telluride, gadolinium-gallium garnet, gallium arsenide, gallium phosphide, unprocessed and processed quartz wafers/plates, and polished tellurium-oxide prisms. These materials are inputs to electro-optical components (modulators, acousto-optic devices, IR/laser optics) with both civil and military (guidance, imaging) applications. The measure took effect 1 December 2025 and runs through the underlying ban's 31 December 2027 expiry; it applies to all countries except Eurasian Economic Union member states.

Ukraine's President signed Decree No. 870/2025 on 29 November 2025, enacting an NSDC decision "On the Application of Personal Special Economic and Other Restrictive Measures (Sanctions)" against 26 Russian legal entities involved in crude petroleum and natural gas extraction, petroleum-product refining, and related energy-sector activity. The decree imposes asset freezes and bars commercial transactions and investment dealings with the designated entities. It entered into force on 2 December 2025, the date of official publication.

Ukraine's President signed Decree No. 871/2025 on 29 November 2025, enacting an NSDC decision "On the Application of Personal Special Economic and Other Restrictive Measures (Sanctions)" against a list of Russian legal entities and individuals identified by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) as involved in the production, supply, or operational support of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs/drones) used by Russia. The decree imposes asset freezes and restrictions on commercial transactions and investment instruments with the designated parties. It entered into force on 2 December 2025, the date of official publication.

The Canadian federal government announced a Strategic Response Fund contribution of up to CAD 210 million (~USD 151 million) toward a CAD 662 million project to expand semiconductor advanced-packaging and R&D commercialisation capacity at IBM Canada's Bromont, Quebec facility and the MiQro Innovation Collaborative Centre (C2MI). The federal contribution covers roughly one-third of total project cost. Ministers Mélanie Joly (Industry) and Evan Solomon (AI and Digital Innovation) announced the investment on 2025-11-28, framing it around domestic supply-chain resilience for AI/HPC, aerospace and defence, telecommunications, and automotive end-markets. The project is projected to create 75 new highly-skilled jobs and sustain over 1,000 existing jobs in the Bromont region.

The European Investment Bank signed a strategic agreement with Crédit Agricole CIB on 28 November 2025 under which the EIB provides a EUR 500 million counter-guarantee, enabling Crédit Agricole CIB to build a portfolio of bank guarantees worth up to EUR 1 billion for clients supplying new European wind farm projects. The EIB cites an expected leverage of up to EUR 8 billion in real-economy investment across the wind supply chain and electricity grid by 2027, backed by InvestEU and forming part of the EIB's broader EUR 6.5 billion Pan-EU Wind Power Package. Global Trade Alert separately logs the transaction as a "red"-flagged state-linked lending-support intervention (state act 95159).

The European Commission approved a Latvian state aid scheme (Case SA.114557) worth approximately €70 million on 28 November 2025 to support investments by companies active in primary agricultural production. The scheme funds new installations, viable business-development projects, and innovation aimed at making Latvian farms and agricultural enterprises more resilient and sustainable, and is scheduled to run through the end of 2026. Global Trade Alert logged the measure as a state loan instrument covering cereals, vegetables, and fruit-and-nuts producers.

KfW IPEX-Bank, the project- and export-finance arm of Germany's state-owned development bank KfW, announced on 28 November 2025 that it structured earmarked, unsecured 19-year corporate financing in the "mid-three-digit-million" British pound range for MVV Energie AG's Medworth thermal waste treatment (energy-from-waste) plant under construction in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, England — MVV's fourth UK plant and, at roughly EUR 500 million in total project investment, the largest single investment in MVV's history. Swiss Export Risk Insurance (SERV) covers the majority of the construction-phase buyer credit for the first time in an MVV financing. Global Trade Alert separately logs the transaction as a "red"-flagged state-linked financial-assistance-in-a- foreign-market intervention (state act 95518 / intervention 151093).

Korea's Ministry of Economy and Finance (MOEF) has imposed a provisional anti-dumping duty of 11.92–19.43% on fibreboard (wood- or other ligneous-fibre panels, thickness ≤5mm, used in furniture, interior construction fittings and packaging) imported from Thailand, effective from 28 November 2025, following a Korea Trade Commission (KTC) preliminary determination of dumping and material injury. On 12 February 2026 the KTC's 469th commission meeting issued its final determination confirming injury and voted to recommend a 5-year definitive anti-dumping duty of 15.29–22.44% to the Minister of Economy and Finance. As of this filing MOEF had not yet gazetted the definitive rate; the 11.92–19.43% provisional schedule remains the only legally operative rate. The investigation was opened on a petition by Korean fibreboard producer Unid BT Plus (유니드비티플러스).

Russia's Government adopted Resolution N° 1947 on 28 November 2025, extending for a fourth consecutive six-month period the temporary ban on the export of waste and scrap of precious metals and of electrical and electronic equipment used principally for precious-metals recovery. The restriction runs from 1 December 2025 through 31 May 2026, covering waste and scrap of gold, silver, platinum, palladium, rhodium, iridium, osmium, and ruthenium, as well as metals plated or clad with precious metals. Carve-outs apply for cathode antimony ingots and small laboratory samples (≤500 g per batch) shipped by refineries for quality verification.

Brazil's national development bank BNDES approved BRL 200 million (~USD 37.5 million) in financing for Scala Data Centers S.A. — Latin America's largest sustainable hyperscale data-center platform, backed by DigitalBridge — to acquire and install machinery, equipment, IT/automation systems and materials for its data-center infrastructure. The loan is drawn under the BNDES Máquinas e Serviços credit line, which prioritises nationally manufactured goods and national services, permitting imported equipment only where no domestic equivalent is available. BNDES president Aloizio Mercadante framed the financing as part of the Lula government's Nova Indústria Brasil industrial-policy programme, aimed at the digital transformation of Brazilian industry. This is the second such operation for Scala: a prior BRL 180 million tranche in the same format was already fully disbursed.

On 27 November 2025, Brazil's Gecex (the executive committee of the Foreign Trade Chamber, Camex) approved a new credit product allowing Brazilian airlines to use the Export Guarantee Fund (Fundo de Garantia às Exportações, FGE) as collateral for domestic bank financing of aviation-kerosene (QAV) purchases, unlocking up to BRL 2 billion (~USD 370 million) in government-backed credit. In exchange for the below-market-rate financing, airlines must take on one of three sustainable-aviation-fuel (SAF) counterparts: buy domestically produced SAF, invest in domestic SAF production plants, or contribute to the National Fund for Industrial and Technological Development (FNDIT) for SAF-related projects. Global Trade Alert logs the measure as both a loan-guarantee intervention and a separate "local content incentive" intervention tied to the SAF counterpart requirement.

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 25 November 2025 China's National Space Administration (CNSA) released a two-year action plan — covering 2025 through 2027 — setting out 22 key measures to formalise and accelerate the development of China's commercial space sector. The plan transitions commercial space policy from a "nurturing" phase (subsidy-pull, loosely regulated) to a "standards-pull / high-quality development" phase, opening national aerospace R&D programmes and launch-infrastructure slots to private operators, establishing a national commercial space development fund, directing government procurement toward commercial launch vehicles and satellites, and unifying previously fragmented provincial regulatory standards. The plan structurally mirrors NASA's COTS/Commercial Crew model and sets commercial operators on course to expand China's ~18% private-firm share of an estimated US$15bn-per-year domestic launch market toward the 2027 horizon aligned with the 15th Five-Year Plan.

The European Investment Fund (EIF), part of the EIB Group, pledged EUR 70 million (~USD 75.8 million) on 25 November 2025 to Alantra's Klima Energy Fund II ("Klima2"), a growth-equity fund targeting roughly twelve fast-growing European companies in clean energy generation, grid and storage infrastructure, energy efficiency and sustainable transport, via EUR 10-30 million tickets. The investment is framed as supporting the EIB Group's TechEU initiative and the REPowerEU plan to accelerate the EU's clean-energy transition and reduce fossil-fuel import dependence. Global Trade Alert separately logs the transaction as a "red"-flagged state-linked financial investment-support intervention.

Ukraine's President signed Decree No. 860/2025 on 25 November 2025, enacting an NSDC decision "On the Application of Personal Special Economic and Other Restrictive Measures (Sanctions)" against 41 legal entities that collectively own 56 maritime vessels. The vessels are alleged to have made illegal port calls at Sevastopol and Feodosia — Ukrainian ports under temporary Russian occupation — to load and export stolen Ukrainian wheat, sunflower seeds, and other food commodities between 2022 and 2025. The sanctions (asset freezes, restrictions on commercial transactions and transit, and foreign- customer limitations) apply for a term of 10 years and entered into force on 27 November 2025, the date of official publication.

On 25 November 2025 the US EPA announced USD 3 billion in new Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF) assistance under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), plus reallocation of a further USD 1.1 billion in previously awarded but unspent state funds, bringing total redirected funding to USD 4.1 billion for state lead service line replacement (LSLR) programmes. Global Trade Alert logs the intervention as a public-procurement-localisation measure because DWSRF/IIJA capital- grant assistance carries standing Build America, Buy America Act (BABA) domestic-content requirements for the iron, steel, and manufactured construction products (pipe, fittings) used in funded replacement work. States that have not obligated or spent funds awarded since FY2023 must submit an implementation plan before accessing new funding.

The Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) board approved a second contract amendment with Foxconn (Hon Hai Technology Group) on 25 November 2025, authorising up to USD 16 million in additional performance-based tax credits under the state's Electronics, Information Technology, and Manufacturing Zone (EITMZ) programme. The amendment backs a further USD 569 million expansion of Foxconn's Mount Pleasant, Racine County operations, projected to create 1,374 new jobs over four years. It raises Foxconn's cumulative EITMZ credit ceiling to USD 96 million (through 31 December 2029) against a cumulative committed investment of USD 1.2 billion and 2,616 jobs -- up from the 2021 amendment's USD 80 million ceiling tied to a USD 672 million investment and 1,454 jobs by end-2025.

On 24 November 2025, six Beijing municipal departments — the Bureau of Economy and Information Technology, Development and Reform Commission, Science and Technology Commission, Health Commission, Drug Administration and Medical Insurance Bureau — jointly issued Notice 京经信发〔2025〕50号 ("Several Measures to Promote High-Quality Development of the Beijing Medical Device Industry"), effective immediately through 31 December 2028. The 15-measure package subsidises the full medical-device value chain: early-stage innovation (up to RMB 1m per project), product approval/launch (up to RMB 2m per product, RMB 10m annual enterprise cap), industrial-park and public-service infrastructure construction (up to 50% of investment, capped at RMB 50m), supply-chain-resilience R&D for critical components/materials (up to 30% of investment, capped at RMB 30m), AI-diagnostic-model development (up to RMB 30m), smart-factory digitalisation (up to 30% of investment, capped at RMB 30m per project), and international regulatory approval/market entry (up to RMB 1m per product, RMB 3m annual cap; up to RMB 10m for introducing overseas products to China).

On 24 November 2025 Barrick Mining Corporation and the Government of Mali announced a comprehensive settlement resolving all disputes arising from the Loulo-Gounkoto gold complex, including the June 2025 provisional state administration order. Under the agreement Barrick commits to pay approximately USD 430 million (≈244 billion CFA francs) to Mali in cash and VAT-credit offsets, formally accedes to Mali's 2023 Mining Code (Loi 2023-040), and receives in exchange: cancellation of all charges against Barrick entities and personnel, release of four detained employees, return of three metric tons of previously seized gold (~USD 400 million), termination of the provisional administration, and a ten-year renewal of the Loulo mine permit (which had been set to expire in February 2026). Full operational control was restored to Barrick on 18 December 2025.

Pakistan's Directorate General of Customs Valuation (Karachi), acting under the Federal Board of Revenue, issued Valuation Ruling No. 2024/2025 on 24 November 2025 (C.No. Misc/54/2021-III/1115), superseding Valuation Ruling No. 1822/2023 and setting fresh minimum customs values (C&F, US$/kg) for latex rubber threads across four count-range bands, differentiated by origin: China at US$2.69-3.53/kg and Malaysia/Thailand at US$2.85-3.66/kg, rising with thread count (30-44, 45-55, 56-63, 64-90 counts). The Directorate rationalized the values downward at stakeholders' request, citing a documented downward trend in prevailing international prices; the ruling functions as an enforceable minimum-value floor under Section 25A of the Customs Act, 1969, applied when declared invoice values fall below the benchmark.

Thailand's Subcommittee on Anti-Dumping and Countervailing Duties (under the Department of Foreign Trade, Ministry of Commerce) issued a final affirmative anti-dumping determination on 24 November 2025, imposing definitive duties of 5.12%–21.94% CIF on imports of aluminium extrusions (profiles, bars, rods, and structural sections) originating in China. The measure covers eight HS subheadings (7604 and 7610 series) and remains in force for five years from the date of Gazette publication. The investigation was initiated on 16 July 2024 following a domestic-industry petition from Thai aluminium extruders competing against surging Chinese imports.

UK Export Finance launched the Critical Goods Export Development Guarantee (Critical Goods EDG), a lending-support scheme that offers an 80% government guarantee on commercial finance for UK-based suppliers of critical minerals to UK exporters. Eligible suppliers must produce at least 50% of their critical-mineral goods for UK exporters (lowered to 20% if the firm also earns at least 5% of turnover from overseas sales), and the mineral must appear on the UK Critical Minerals Intelligence Centre's 2024 criticality assessment or the associated growth-minerals list. The scheme targets commercial lending facilities above £25 million and lets suppliers access the guarantee even if they do not export directly, as long as their output feeds into UK exporters' end products.

On 24 November 2025, OFAC assessed a civil monetary penalty of USD 4,677,552 — the statutory maximum and the largest single OFAC penalty ever imposed against an individual — against an Atlanta-based real-estate investor operating through King Holdings LLC. Between April 2023 and March 2024 the respondent willfully purchased, mortgaged, renovated, and resold US residential property beneficially owned by a family member of a Russian oligarch sanctioned under EO 14024, in direct violation of a prior OFAC cease-and-desist order and in defiance of an administrative subpoena. OFAC found the violations egregious and non-self-disclosed; both aggravating factors drove the penalty to the statutory ceiling.

The Chongqing Municipal Government General Office issued Notice 渝府办发〔2025〕58号 on 2025-11-22, promulgating "Several Policy Measures to Promote High-Quality Development of the Low-Altitude Economy," effective immediately through 2027-12-31. The package comprises eight capped-percentage subsidy tracks covering low-altitude public-service procurement, logistics route operating subsidies (up to RMB 150,000 per route), demonstration projects (up to RMB 20 million), test-flight infrastructure (20% of investment, capped at RMB 5 million), manufacturing R&D and first-of-kind equipment support (up to 30% of receipts, capped at RMB 5 million), national innovation/manufacturing centres (up to RMB 20 million), ground-station infrastructure (20% of investment, capped at RMB 10 million), private-equity fund-manager incentives (1% of invested capital, capped at RMB 10 million cumulative), and AI-compute subsidies (20% of service cost, up to RMB 1 million/year). Global Trade Alert classifies all eight interventions as state aid with a "certainly harmful" (Red) rating.

On 22 November 2025, the Abu Dhabi Exports Office (ADEX, the export-financing arm of the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development) and the UAE Foreign Aid Agency launched a USD 1 billion "AI for Development" initiative to finance artificial-intelligence and digital-infrastructure projects across African countries. The announcement was made by Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, at the G20 summit. Global Trade Alert classifies the measure as a certainly-harmful "Other export incentive" intervention (state-act 95488), since it channels UAE state export-credit/aid capital toward AI-related exports and services rather than being a neutral development grant.

The Department for Business and Trade, with DSIT, published "Vision 2035: Critical Minerals Strategy" on 22 November 2025 — the UK's first dedicated critical-minerals strategy under the Starmer government, superseding the withdrawn 2022 strategy. DBT commits up to GBP 50 million for new critical mineral projects on top of GBP 165 million in existing support, with the National Wealth Fund providing equity backing (Cornish Lithium GBP 24m in 2023 plus a further GBP 31m commitment in 2025; Cornish Metals GBP 28.6m in 2025; South Crofty Tin GBP 26.8m). Sets 2035 targets of 10% of UK industrial demand from domestic production (extraction + processing + refining), 20% from recycling, and a hard floor of 50,000 tonnes lithium carbonate equivalent produced domestically. Strategy is consciously midstream-and-recycling-tilted rather than upstream-extraction race; pillars are (i) optimise domestic production, (ii) resilient global supply networks via partnerships with US, EU, Canada, Australia, Saudi Arabia, India, Japan (plus Kazakhstan rhenium/vanadium and continued China engagement), (iii) circular economy / recycling, (iv) responsible supply chains.

The European Commission approved, under EU State aid rules (Article 107(3)(c) TFEU and the 2022 Chips Act framework), a Czech direct grant of approximately €450 million to Onsemi to support a €1.64 billion investment establishing the EU's first 8-inch, fully vertically-integrated silicon-carbide (SiC) power-semiconductor manufacturing facility in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm. The plant will span SiC crystal growth, 8-inch wafer processing, and power-device fabrication, with commercial output targeted for 2027. The decision is the largest Chips-Act-era state-aid approval for an Eastern European Member State and a cornerstone implementing instrument of the Czech Semiconductor Cluster industrial-policy programme launched in 2024.

The European Investment Bank and Commerzbank signed a EUR 500 million line-by-line guarantee agreement under the new Growth for Energy (G4E) programme, the first of its kind in Europe. The EIB covers up to 50% of Commerzbank's risk exposure on qualifying sub-loans (each project under EUR 80 million) to German Stadtwerke municipal utilities financing renewable electricity generation, district heating and electricity grid reinforcement, with the risk-sharing structure expected to mobilise roughly EUR 1.2 billion of total investment in local energy infrastructure to support Germany's Energiewende.

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.

The Beijing Tongzhou District People's Government issued Notice 通政发〔2025〕9号 on 20 November 2025 ("Several Measures for Accelerating High-Quality Industrial Development in Beijing City's Sub-Center (Revised)"), effective immediately and superseding the prior-year version (通政发〔2024〕8号). The package subsidises industrial incubation platforms, R&D and university-enterprise innovation collaboration, revitalisation of existing factory space, smart-manufacturing/"lighthouse factory" digital transformation, national/provincial lab recognition, and private-equity fund management, alongside talent, green-finance and application-scenario testing support. Global Trade Alert logged the underlying state act (95773) as seven separate "state aid, unspecified" interventions.

On 20 November 2025 Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin signed Government Order No. 3351-r, approving a list of 15 companies selected to receive a combined RUB 4.97 billion in 2025 federal infrastructure subsidies under the "New Opportunities for the Far East" federal project (part of the "Socio-Economic Development of the Far Eastern Federal District" state programme). The two largest line items — RUB 2 billion (~USD 24.7m) each, the programme's legal per-project ceiling — go to OOO "Amur Minerals" for grid connection at its planned mining-and-processing plant on the Malmyzhskoye copper-gold deposit (Khabarovsk Krai) and to OOO "Udokanskaya Med'" (Udokan Copper) for construction of a transport-storage complex at its Udokan copper mining-and-metallurgical combine (Zabaykalsky Krai). Subsidies reimburse a share of investors' capital spending on power grid connection, water/heat networks and access infrastructure, contingent on job-creation and capex targets set out in the order's annex.

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 US Department of War announced a USD 29.9 million Defense Production Act (DPA) Title III award to ElementUS Minerals, LLC (doing business as ElementUSA) to construct a demonstration facility in Gramercy, Louisiana extracting gallium and scandium (and other critical minerals) from bauxite residue, a byproduct of alumina refining. The company holds proprietary extraction technology and access to over 30 million tons of bauxite residue feedstock, and the award is intended to establish one of the first domestic US producers of both gallium and scandium. Secondary development work occurs at the company's "Critical Resource Accelerator" in Cedar Park, Texas.

On 20 November 2025 the US EPA opened the 9th round of Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) lending — USD 6.5 billion in WIFIA financing plus USD 550 million under the State WIFIA (SWIFIA) program, USD 7.05 billion in total newly available capacity — and simultaneously approved five new WIFIA loans totaling USD 711 million across Fort Worth TX (USD 347m), Pflugerville TX (USD 176m), Joliet IL (USD 87m), Ashland OR (USD 73m) and Wilton Manors FL (USD 28m). Global Trade Alert logs each individual loan as a public-procurement-localisation intervention because WIFIA capital assistance carries a standing American Iron and Steel (AIS) domestic-content requirement for iron, steel and manufactured products used in EPA-financed water infrastructure — a structural condition of the WIFIA statute rather than a provision unique to this announcement.

On 20 November 2025 the Federal Transit Administration announced USD 2,027,948,082 in combined FY2025 Grants for Buses and Bus Facilities and FY2025/2026 Low or No Emission (Low-No) Program awards, covering 165 projects across 45 states and the District of Columbia: USD 397.7 million for 62 Bus Facilities projects and USD 1.63 billion for 103 Low-No projects, funding roughly 2,400 replacement buses. Global Trade Alert logs the round as a public-procurement-localisation intervention because both programs carry standing Build America, Buy America Act (BABA) domestic-content requirements — buses and manufactured components funded by the awards must be produced with US-made iron, steel, and manufactured products and final-assembled domestically. FTA formalised the full project list via Federal Register notice on 15 January 2026.

The Texas Energy Fund, administered by the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT), finalized a USD 370 million low-interest (3%) state loan to NRG Energy Inc. to fund 60% of the cost of a new 455 MW natural-gas peaking unit ("Greens Bayou 6") at the existing Greens Bayou Generating Station in Harris County, Texas. The loan runs a 20-year term (20 November 2025 to 20 November 2045); total project cost is estimated at under USD 617 million and the facility is expected online in 2028, interconnecting into the ERCOT Houston Load Zone. This is the sixth loan finalized under the TxEF's In-ERCOT Generation Loan Program, part of a state-level subsidized-lending program that has now backed over 3,500 MW of new dispatchable generation capacity to shore up ERCOT grid reliability following the 2021 winter-storm blackouts.

President Claudia Sheinbaum signed a comprehensive reform to Mexico's Customs Law (Ley Aduanera) published in the Diario Oficial de la Federación on 19 November 2025, entering into force 1 January 2026. The decree formally recognises the Agencia Nacional de Aduanas de México (ANAM) as the autonomous customs authority with expanded inspection and fiscalisation powers, creates a new inter-secretarial Consejo Aduanero with binding decisional authority over customs-agent licensing, and mandates real-time electronic traceability and video-surveillance at all recintos fiscales. The reform is Mexico's most comprehensive statutory overhaul of its customs-administration architecture in over a decade, directly conditioning USMCA-origin compliance infrastructure for approximately US$800 billion in annual MX-US trade and over 3,200 IMMEX-registered nearshoring operators.

Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Ma'aden), MP Materials Corp., and the US Department of Defense signed a binding term sheet on November 19, 2025 to establish a joint venture that will build and operate a rare earth refining and separation facility in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Ma'aden holds a minimum 51% controlling stake; MP Materials and the DoD together hold the remaining 49%. The facility will process rare earth feedstock from Saudi and global sources to produce separated light and heavy rare earth oxides, with a validity window to commercial agreement extending through March 31, 2027.

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.

On 19 November 2025, the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), in a coordinated action with Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the UK's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, designated 5 individuals and 7 companies linked to two Russia-based "bulletproof hosting" (BPH) providers, Media Land and Aeza Group, under Executive Order 13694. Media Land and its subsidiaries (Media Land Technology, Data Center Kirishi, ML Cloud) supplied server infrastructure to ransomware groups including LockBit, BlackSuit and Play. The designations also targeted three companies Aeza Group used to evade its July 2025 OFAC designation and rebrand its infrastructure: Hypercore Ltd. (United Kingdom), Smart Digital Ideas DOO (Serbia), and Datavice MCHJ (Uzbekistan). All designated persons' U.S.-nexus assets are blocked and U.S. persons are prohibited from transacting with them.

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.

China Development Bank announced a CNY 30 billion (~USD 4.2bn) special loan facility dedicated to the China-Europe Railway Express (中欧班列), financing construction of corridor, port and logistics-hub infrastructure plus working-capital support for enterprises operating the service. The scheme was unveiled at the Second China-Europe Railway Express International Cooperation Forum in Xi'an, alongside a matching CNY 30bn facility from the Export-Import Bank of China. CDB's Jiangsu, Henan and Shaanxi branches signed initial project-financing agreements with Lianyungang Port Holding Group, Henan International Logistics Hub Construction and Operation Co., and Xi'an International Port Group respectively.

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.

The EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, via Horizon Europe grant agreement 101253078, is co-funding "AI:AT — the AI Factory Austria" with EUR 14,999,999.45 in EU/EuroHPC funding against a total project cost of EUR 29,999,998.79 (matched roughly 50/50 by Austrian national and consortium co-funding). The grant runs 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2028 and is coordinated by Advanced Computing Austria (ACA) GmbH together with the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology and a consortium of Austrian academic and industry partners. AI:AT builds supercomputing infrastructure and AI services as Austria's national node in the EU's AI Factories network, one implementing grant under the EU AI Continent Action Plan (COM(2025)165, filed 2025-04-09-eu-ai-continent-action-plan).

On 18 November 2025 the European Commission approved, under EU State aid rules, German financial support of up to EUR 1.75 billion in favour of Lausitz Energie Kraftwerke AG (LEAG), the operator of lignite-fired power plants in the Lusatian mining area of eastern Germany near the Polish and Czech borders. The aid compensates LEAG for additional costs and forgone profits arising from the early, government-mandated phase-out of its lignite fleet, which will close in stages in 2028, 2029, 2035 and 2038 under Germany's 2020 coal-exit legislation. The measure was first notified in 2020 and had been under a formal Commission investigation (opened March 2021) for nearly five years before this clearance; a parallel EUR 2.6 billion tranche for RWE's western lignite fleet was cleared separately in December 2023.

Israel's Minister of Defense signed an order on 18 November 2025 revoking the Order Governing the Control of Commodities and Services (Engagement in Encryption Items) of 1974, with effect on 21 March 2026 (four-month implementation period). The 51-year-old standalone Encryption Order regime — which licensed both civilian and defense-grade encryption items through a parallel Ministry of Defense track — is replaced by a unified architecture in which defense-grade dual-use items move to the Defense Export Controls Agency (DECA) at the Ministry of Defense, and civilian dual-use items (Wassenaar list) move to the Export Control Agency (ECA) at the Ministry of Economy and Industry. Many B2C consumer products with embedded encryption are decontrolled outright; B2B / commercial products remain controlled but under DECA or ECA rather than the legacy Encryption Order regime.

Mozambique's Council of Ministers, at its 39th Ordinary Session on 18 November 2025, approved the terms and conditions of a concession contract granting a state-company consortium the exclusive right to finance, construct, import, and operate (i) a floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) LNG terminal at Beira and Inhassoro (Inhambane province), and (ii) the 865-km ROMPCO gas pipeline connecting Mozambican gas fields to South Africa via Komatipoort — both for a 30-year concession term. The concessionaire is a Specific Object Entity (Entidade de Objecto Específico, EOE) constituted by four state enterprises — the National Hydrocarbon Company (ENH, E.P.), Mozambique Ports & Railways (CFM), Mozambique Electricity (EDM), and Cahora Bassa Hydroelectric (HCB) — plus government-selected technical and financial partners. The decree marks the first midstream LNG infrastructure-rights award in Mozambique and represents a foundational shift toward state-led control of the country's regasification and cross-border pipeline architecture rather than concession to international IOCs.

Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs International Trade Administration (MOEA-ITA) published a draft amendment to the Strategic High-Tech Commodities (SHTC) export control lists on 18 November 2025, subject to a 60-day public-preview period, adding 18 items in three new categories — advanced 3D printing equipment (metal-powder-bed- fusion, laser-sintering, electron-beam-melting capable systems), advanced semiconductor equipment (CMOS chips, low-temperature cryogenic cooling, scanning electron microscope equipment, cryogenic wafer probers), and quantum computers (general-purpose programmable quantum computing systems). Exporters must obtain MOEA-ITA prior approval before shipment; permits will be issued only after confirming goods will not be used in weapons-of-mass-destruction programmes.