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

U.S. Customs and Border Protection published a final notice in Customs Bulletin and Decisions, Vol. 59, No. 49 (31 December 2025), revoking two New York ruling letters (NY N019900, dated 2007, and NY N159975, dated 2011) that had classified certain submersible remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) — used in offshore oil and gas, military, and underwater construction operations — under HTSUS heading 8906.90.0090 ("other vessels"), which is duty-free. Per Headquarters Ruling Letter H272339, CBP determined the ROVs lack the essential characteristics of "vessels" (they do not float, have tether-limited navigability, and are not designed to transport persons or goods) and reclassifies them under subheading 8479.89.95 ("other machines and mechanical appliances having individual functions"), which carries a 2.5% general (MFN) duty rate. No comments were received on the September 2025 proposed notice. The change takes effect 60 days after publication, i.e. 1 March 2026, and also revokes/modifies any other unidentified ruling covering the same merchandise.

Türkiye's Ministry of Trade published Tebliğ No. 2026/20 ("İthalatta Gözetim Uygulanmasına İlişkin Tebliğ") in the Official Gazette on 31 December 2025 (Sayı 33124, 4th mükerrer), entering into force 30 January 2026 (30 days after publication). It imposes a forward-looking import surveillance regime on load cells (GTİP 9031.80.80.90.11, reference price USD 20,000/tonne) and other measuring/checking instruments (GTİP 9031.80.80.90.19, reference price USD 7,000/tonne) whenever the declared customs value falls below those thresholds. Below the floor, import is only permitted with a surveillance certificate ("gözetim belgesi") issued electronically by the Ministry's Import Directorate General, required by customs at declaration registration and valid for six months.

Decree reforming various tariff fractions of the General Import and Export Duties Tariff (TIGIE), published in the Diario Oficial de la Federación on 29 December 2025 and in force 1 January 2026. The reform, approved by Congress as a statutory amendment to the LIGIE (Chamber of Deputies and Senate, Dec 2025) and signed by President Claudia Sheinbaum, raises MFN import duties to between 5% and 50% ad valorem on 1,463 tariff lines covering more than 20 chapters of the TIGIE, spanning automotive, auto parts, textiles, apparel, footwear, steel, aluminum, plastics, paper, leather, furniture, glass, toys, appliances and cosmetics. The increases apply only to goods originating in countries without a free trade agreement with Mexico — principally China, South Korea, India, Vietnam, Thailand, Brazil, Indonesia, Chinese Taipei, the UAE, and South Africa. The decree formalises at statutory level the September 2024 Sheinbaum executive order placing a 50% duty on finished passenger vehicles from non-FTA states and is framed by the Secretaría de Economía and SHCP as the operational tariff instrument of Plan México (2025-01-21).

On 22 August 2025 South Korea's National R&D Program Evaluation Steering Committee, convened by MOTIE, finalized an exemption from the mandatory preliminary feasibility study (예비타당성조사 면제) for the "K-On-Device AI Semiconductor Technology Development" project, clearing the roughly KRW 689.15 billion (approx. USD 496 million) program to proceed toward FY2026 budget allocation without the standard multi-year vetting delay. The project funds full-stack development — custom AI chip design, software, and modules — across four demand-anchored industries: automotive (Hyundai Motor), IoT/home appliances (LG Electronics), machinery/robotics (Doosan Robotics, Daedong), and defense (Korea Aerospace Industries). MOTIE structured the program so end-user demand companies participated directly in project planning, pairing them with domestic fabless design and foundry manufacturing firms to build a domestic on-device AI semiconductor ecosystem, ahead of full budget confirmation and formal program launch.

Türkiye's Ministry of Trade published İthalatta Gözetim Uygulanmasına İlişkin Tebliğ (No: 2025/4) in Resmî Gazete on 31 July 2025, adding ice-making machines (GTİP 8418.69.00.99.12) to the country's import surveillance mechanism. Imports whose unit customs (CIF) value is below USD 16 per kilogram gross weight require a six-month "gözetim belgesi" (supervision certificate) from the Imports General Directorate before customs clearance; the measure entered into force on 30 August 2025, thirty days after publication. Global Trade Alert logs the intervention as "certainly harmful" and names Belgium, Canada and China among the principal exporters affected. The mechanism does not block imports outright but adds a licensing/documentation step that functions as a de facto minimum-price floor on cheap ice-maker imports, protecting domestic appliance assemblers from underpriced units clearing customs undetected.

BIS published a Federal Register notice (FR Doc 2025-11067, 90 FR 25208) revising Annex I under Section 232 to add further steel derivative products to the tariff list: combined refrigerator-freezers (HTSUS 8418.10.00), clothes dryers (8451.21.00, 8451.29.00), washing machines (8450.11.00, 8450.20.00), dishwashers (8422.11.00), chest and upright freezers (8418.30.00, 8418.40.00), cooking stoves/ranges/ovens (8516.60.40), food waste disposals (8509.80.20), and welded wire. The steel content of these products becomes subject to the Section 232 duty (raised to 50% ad valorem under Presidential Proclamation 10947 of 2025-06-03, except for UK-origin products) effective 12:01 a.m. ET on 2025-06-23; non-steel content continues to face whatever reciprocal or other tariffs otherwise apply.

Thailand's Board of Investment issued Notification No. Sor. 5/2568 (5/2025), dated 5 June 2025, amending the Schedule of Investment-Promoted Activities under BOI Notification No. 9/2565 across roughly 32 activity categories, including machinery and automotive, electrical appliances and electronics, metals and materials, public utilities, digital, and creative industries. The revision extends standard BOI tax and import-duty investment-promotion incentives to accumulator/battery-cell manufacturing activities within these categories, while discontinuing promoted status for metal-cutting activities (Category 5.4.10). The notification applies to investment- promotion applications submitted on or after 1 July 2025, and was later published in the Royal Gazette on 22 January 2026.

Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/778 of 14 April 2025, adopted under Regulation (EU) No 654/2014 (the EU enforcement regulation for international trade rights), reinstates the EU's 2018 and 2020 commercial rebalancing measures against the United States and adds new countermeasures in response to the second Trump administration's 10 February 2025 Section 232 proclamations, which restored a universal 25% tariff on steel imports and raised the aluminium tariff to 25% effective 12 March 2025 (filed as 2025-02-11-us-section-232-steel-aluminum-global-tariff-reinstatement). The combined package targets approximately €26 billion of EU imports from the United States — matching the scope of US measures affecting EU exports — and combines the reinstatement of pre-existing duties on a first tranche of products (steel, aluminium, agricultural goods, motorcycles, and other industrial items originally subject to the 2018 and 2020 lists) with new duties on roughly €18 billion of additional US-origin goods spanning poultry, beef, certain seafood, nuts, eggs, dairy, sugar and vegetables on the agricultural side, and steel, aluminium, textiles, leather, appliances, plastics and wood products on the industrial side. Tariff rates layer onto MFN duties at up to 50% for some products, mirroring the structure of the 2018 measures. On the same day the Commission published Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/786, which suspends application of Articles 2 and 3 of 2025/778 for 90 days, until 14 July 2025, to allow space for bilateral negotiations following the US 9 April 2025 announcement of a 90-day pause on its own reciprocal-tariff regime (2025-04-02-us-trump-reciprocal-tariff-regime). The legal scaffolding therefore exists and is in force, but no duties were collected during the suspension window. This is the first standalone EU rebalancing instrument adopted against the United States in the second Trump administration and the first major use of Reg 654/2014 since the 2018-2020 Section 232 episode.