Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2662 actions· ✨ 89 recent

On 4 June 2026 USTR published a formal Notice of Determination in the Federal Register (doc 2026-11158, docket USTR-2025-0043) concluding that Brazil's acts, policies, and practices in six areas — digital trade and electronic payment services, unfair preferential tariffs, anti-corruption enforcement, IP protection, ethanol market access, and illegal deforestation — are unreasonable and burden US commerce. Simultaneously, USTR proposed a 25% ad valorem tariff on all Brazilian-origin goods, subject to ~1,600 HTS subheading exclusions including approximately 430 civil-aircraft lines. A public hearing is scheduled for 6 July 2026 and USTR faces a statutory deadline of 15 July 2026 to finalise any responsive action; the tariff has not yet taken effect.

On 23 April 2026, the Council of the European Union adopted the 20th package of restrictive measures against Russia, anchored by Council Regulation (EU) 2026/506 amending Regulation 833/2014 (sectoral sanctions) and Council Regulation (EU) 2026/511 amending Regulation 269/2014 (asset-freeze listings — 120 additional individuals and entities, the largest single tranche in two years). The package operationalises and extends the crypto-sanctions architecture introduced in the 19th package and constructs the legal scaffolding for a future full prohibition on maritime services to vessels carrying Russian crude/petroleum products. Headline measures: (i) full sectoral prohibition on transactions with crypto-asset service providers and exchange platforms established in Russia or Belarus, plus designation of the rouble-backed stablecoin RUBx and the digital rouble (CBDC) on Annex LIII — effective 24 May 2026, with EU support for the digital rouble's development banned outright; (ii) 36 new energy-sector listings spanning upstream extraction, refining and transportation; (iii) prohibition on providing technical, financial, brokering and insurance services to Russia-flagged, Russian-certified or Russian-managed LNG tankers and icebreakers effective 25 April 2026, extending to foreign-flagged vessels operating in Russian interests by January 2027 and culminating in a categorical ban on LNG terminal services to Russian-controlled entities on 1 January 2027; (iv) full transaction ban on 20 Russian banks plus four third-country banks listed for SPFS connectivity / sanctions circumvention; (v) 46 newly listed shadow-fleet vessels and new tanker sale-due-diligence obligations on EU shipping operators; (vi) 58 designations of companies and associated individuals in the Russian military-industrial complex including drone developers/manufacturers; (vii) further Annex IV third-country circumvention enabler listings (China, Hong Kong, Turkey, UAE); (viii) parallel measures against Belarus. Entry into force on 24 April 2026 (day following publication in OJ L_202600506), except for measures with explicit deferred application dates.

On 23 October 2025, the Council of the European Union adopted the 19th package of restrictive measures against Russia, anchored by Council Regulation (EU) 2025/2033 amending Regulation 833/2014 (sectoral sanctions), Council Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/2035 amending Regulation 269/2014 (asset-freeze listings — 22 individuals + 42 entities, total 69 listings), and Council Regulation (EU) 2025/2041 (parallel Belarus measures). The package closes the Russian-LNG import loophole left open by the 18th package and establishes the architectural template for crypto-asset sanctions. Headline measures: (i) full prohibition on imports of Russian-origin LNG into the EU — short-term contracts banned six months from entry into force (effective 25 April 2026), long-term contracts (> 1 year, executed before 17 June 2025) phased out by 1 January 2027; (ii) full transaction ban on Rosneft and Gazprom Neft (tightening prior partial measures); (iii) five additional Russian banks added to Annex XIV transaction ban (Alfa-Bank, MTS Bank among them; effective 12 November 2025); (iv) full transaction bans on the Mir card payment system and the Faster Payments System (SBP), effective 25 January 2026; (v) first-ever EU sanctions on a stablecoin — the rouble-backed A7A5 (issuer + developer designated) — and a Paraguay-based cryptocurrency exchange used as a circumvention rail; (vi) prohibition on EU operators contracting with 11 listed Russian Special Economic Zones (Annex LII), with mandatory divestment from Alabuga (Tatarstan) and Technopolis Moscow effective 25 January 2026 — no five-year wind-down available; (vii) 45 entities added to Annex IV military end-user list (28 Russian + 17 third-country: 12 Chinese/Hong Kong, 3 Indian, 2 Thai); (viii) new export restrictions on electronic components, microelectronics, acyclic hydrocarbons, pneumatic rubber tires and propellant chemicals (~EUR 155 m of EU 2024 exports); (ix) prohibition on supply of AI, HPC, and quantum-computing services to Russian persons (effective 25 November 2025); (x) tourism-services ban (1 January 2026 wind-down); (xi) 117 additional shadow-fleet vessels listed (cumulative 557, exceeding the 18th package's 444); (xii) four Belarus + Kazakhstan banks listed for SPFS use (effective 2 December 2025); (xiii) binding ownership/control definitions added to Reg. 269/2014 (50 % proprietary-rights threshold + eight-criterion control test). Entry into force on 24 October 2025 (day following publication in OJ L_202502033), except for measures with explicit deferred application dates.

On 15 July 2025 USTR Ambassador Jamieson Greer initiated a Section 301 investigation into six categories of Brazilian "acts, policies, and practices" alleged to be unreasonable or discriminatory and to burden US commerce: (1) digital trade and electronic payment services (specifically the Banco Central do Brasil's operation of the Pix instant-payments system, alleged to disadvantage US payment providers); (2) unfair, preferential tariffs (Brazil's preferential tariff treatment for selected partners that excludes US exports); (3) anti-corruption enforcement (alleged interference with US-linked enforcement matters); (4) intellectual property protection (insufficient enforcement against piracy and counterfeiting); (5) ethanol market access (Brazil's reversal of near-zero ethanol tariffs imposed during the 2017-2024 window); and (6) illegal deforestation (the trade-distorting effect of unenforced environmental rules on Brazilian commodity exports). The Federal Register notice (USTR-2025-0043, FR doc 2025-13498) published on 18 July 2025 set written-comment and hearing-request deadlines for 18 August 2025 and a public hearing for 3 September 2025 at the US International Trade Commission. A determination on whether Brazil's practices are actionable, and what remedies (including retaliatory tariffs, withdrawal of trade concessions, or formal WTO action) USTR will pursue, is statutorily due within 12 months of initiation — i.e. by 15 July 2026.