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

The Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council (DOD, GSA, and NASA) published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on 17 February 2026 (FR Doc 2026-03065, 91 FR 7223) implementing Section 5949(a) of the NDAA FY2023 (Pub. L. 117-263), which bars executive agencies from acquiring electronic products or services containing semiconductor components designed, produced, or provided by SMIC, CXMT, YMTC, or their affiliates. A Part B prohibition extends the restriction to "critical systems" whose subsystems incorporate covered semiconductors regardless of COTS sourcing. The comment period closed 20 April 2026; proposed prohibitions take effect 23 December 2027.

Brazil's Foreign Trade Chamber executive committee (GECEX) issued Resolution No. 852, dated 4 February 2026 and published in the Diário Oficial da União on 5 February 2026, amending Annex VI of Resolução Gecex nº 272/2021 — the instrument that adapted Brazil's Common Mercosur Nomenclature (NCM) and Common External Tariff (TEC) to the 2022 Harmonized System revision. The measure realigns applied tariffs on roughly 1,249 NCM codes under the IT/telecom (LEBIT) and capital-goods (BK) special-tariff exception lists, per secondary reporting raising codes currently taxed below a 7.2% floor up to that rate, with other affected lines moving to higher bracket rates (reported figures include 12.6%, 20%, and other tiers depending on product). Aeronautical-sector products are explicitly excluded from the recomposition (Art. 2). Global Trade Alert classifies the measure as a "Red" (trade-restrictive) import tariff intervention.

On 26 December 2025, Japan's Cabinet under Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi approved the FY2026 (Reiwa 8) national budget, which allocates JPY 150 billion (~USD 1bn) to the "Investment Project for Mass Production of Next-Generation Semiconductors" -- a state equity-investment line administered by the Information-technology Promotion Agency (IPA) that funds Rapidus Corporation's 2nm-class logic fab in Chitose, Hokkaido. The FY2026 allocation is 50% larger than the JPY 100 billion IPA equity tranche budgeted for FY2025, taking cumulative government equity in Rapidus to roughly JPY 250 billion. The line sits inside METI's wider AI/semiconductor budget of JPY 1.239 trillion for FY2026 (up roughly 4x year-on-year) under the "AI/Semiconductor Industry Base Strengthening Frame," part of the government's pledge of over JPY 10 trillion in public support for AI and chips through FY2030. The budget takes effect with Japan's fiscal year on 1 April 2026, subject to ordinary Diet passage in early 2026.

The UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office designated two China-based commercial cyber companies — Sichuan Anxun Information Technology Co Ltd (known as i-Soon) and Integrity Technology Group Incorporated — under the UK's Cyber sanctions regime, freezing their UK assets and imposing controls on commercial transactions and investment instruments involving them. i-Soon was designated for targeting over 80 government and private-sector IT systems worldwide, including UK public-sector and private-industry networks. Integrity Tech was designated for operating a covert botnet of more than 260,000 compromised devices globally and supplying access to it to enable unauthorised intrusion into UK public-sector systems.

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 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.

On 5 February 2026, USTR Ambassador Jamieson Greer and Argentine Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno signed in Washington the United States-Argentina Agreement on Reciprocal Trade and Investment (ARTI), formalising the framework jointly announced on 13 November 2025. The agreement is the first standalone bilateral trade-and-investment instrument concluded by the second Trump administration and the first FTA-style agreement signed under the post-IEEPA reciprocal-tariff architecture (Executive Order 14257, "Liberation Day"). On the US side, the ARTI sets out three tariff schedules: (i) Schedule 2A suspends additional reciprocal tariffs under EO 14257 for specified Argentine-origin goods (covering "unavailable natural resources" and non-patented pharmaceutical inputs); (ii) Schedule 2B grants a zero additional reciprocal tariff for designated Argentine agricultural products under EO 14360; and (iii) caps additional ad-valorem duties on other goods at 10% above MFN rates, inclusive of IEEPA reciprocal tariffs. On the Argentine side, illustrative tariff-rate quotas include duty-free access for 80,000 MT of US beef in calendar year 2026, 1,000 MT for cheese, 870 MT for almonds, 40 MT in-shell + 40 MT shelled for pistachios, 80,000 litres for wine (<2 L bottles), and preferential treatment for 10,000 motor vehicles meeting defined technical parameters. Argentina additionally commits to broader preferential market access on medicines, chemicals, machinery, information-technology products, medical devices, and a wide range of agricultural goods, alongside IP-enforcement upgrades (counterfeit/pirated-goods enforcement, patentability criteria, patent-backlog reduction, geographical indications) and investment-facilitation commitments that align Argentina's regime with US-preferred standards on regulatory cooperation, labour and environment.

On 29 October 2025, during the Future Investment Initiative (FII9) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia's Local Content & Government Procurement Authority (LCGPA) and the PIF-owned Saudi Information Technology Company (SITE) signed an agreement launching "Phase One" of national adoption of localised cybersecurity technologies. The agreement commits more than 15 Saudi government entities to source cybersecurity products — Rakeen NGFW (next-generation firewalls), Rakeen IPS (intrusion-prevention systems) and Rakeen XDR (extended detection and response) — from Rakeen Cybersecurity, a SITE subsidiary established to localise these technologies domestically. The signing was attended by the Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources and LCGPA board chairman Bandar Al-Khorayf, PIF Governor Yasir Alrumayyan, and National Cybersecurity Authority (NCA) Governor Majed Almazyed.

The US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control designated a Russian national (Vitaliy Sergeyevich Andreyev), a Russia-based DPRK economic and trade consular official (Kim Ung Sun), a Chinese front company (Shenyang Geumpungri Network Technology Co., Ltd), and a DPRK trading company subordinate to the DPRK Ministry of People's Armed Forces General Political Bureau (Korea Sinjin Trading Corporation) for facilitating a fraudulent overseas IT-worker scheme that funds North Korea's weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs. The action expands on the prior designation of Chinyong Information Technology Cooperation Company, an entity tied to the DPRK defense ministry that deploys IT worker delegations in Russia and Laos. Treasury said Andreyev and Kim Ung Sun facilitated cryptocurrency-to-cash conversions worth nearly USD 600,000 since December 2024, and that Shenyang Geumpungri's delegation of DPRK IT workers has earned Chinyong and Sinjin over USD 1 million in profits since 2021. Designations were made under Executive Order 13687, blocking all US-jurisdiction property of the four parties and barring US persons from transactions with them.

The US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control designated the Korea Sobaeksu Trading Company (also known as Sobaeksu United Corporation) and three associated individuals — Kim Se Un, Jo Kyong Hun, and Myong Chol Min — for evading US and UN sanctions and clandestinely generating revenue for the DPRK government, including through fraudulent information-technology worker schemes. Sobaeksu operates as a front company for the US-designated Munitions Industry Department, which oversees North Korea's nuclear program and ballistic-missile development. The action was coordinated with a Department of Justice unsealing of indictments against seven DPRK nationals over counterfeit- cigarette sanctions evasion, and State Department reward offers of up to USD 7 million for information on the individuals involved. Designations block all US-jurisdiction property of the four parties and bar US persons from transacting with them.

On 10 July 2025 the Huairou District Economic and Information Technology Bureau (Beijing) issued Huaijingxinfa [2025] No. 35, district-level support measures to promote high-quality development of the advanced manufacturing and software/information-technology services industries, implementing the district's broader high-quality-development guiding opinions (Huaizhengfa [2024] No. 16). The measures cover 13 support categories (R&D, technology upgrading, standards/certification, "specialized, refined, unique and new" (专精特新) enterprise recognition, among others), with individual awards decided case-by-case through an application and government-approval process rather than a disclosed schedule of fixed amounts. A follow-on December 2025 notice solicited enterprise applications for the 2025 award cycle under this same document.

Brazil's Foreign Trade Chamber executive committee (GECEX) issued Resolution No. 746, dated 3 July 2025 and published in the Diário Oficial da União on 4 July 2025, amending Annex I of Resolução Gecex nº 323/2022 — the Ex-Tarifário regime for information-technology and telecommunications-goods tariff lines. The amendment excludes a set of existing duty-free Ex-Tarifário codes from the annex (reverting those lines to the standard MFN import duty) while including new codes granting temporary duty relief (typically to 0%) on lines with no equivalent domestic production; Global Trade Alert's tracking of the underlying state act counts 27 IT/telecom product lines affected in total, split between roughly 22 new/renewed duty-free grants (revoking 31 December 2025 absent renewal) and 5 exclusions reverting to standard duty. The amendment took effect 11 July 2025, seven days after publication. GTA classifies the measure "Red" (trade- restrictive/discriminatory), consistent with its treatment of GECEX's narrow, discretionary Ex-Tarifário product-line grants as favouring specific importers rather than liberalising trade economy- wide.

Brazil's Foreign Trade Chamber executive committee (GECEX) issued Resolution No. 748, signed 3 July 2025 and published in the Diário Oficial da União on 4 July 2025, revoking Ex-Tarifário (temporary import-duty exemption) status for 7 tariff-line codes previously granted duty-free treatment under the regime: 5 capital-goods lines, 1 information-technology/telecommunications line, and 1 automotive product classified as capital goods. The affected lines revert from 0% Ex-Tarifário rates to their standard MFN import duty. The change took effect 4 August 2025, one month after publication. Global Trade Alert flags Canada, China and Czechia among the trading partners most exposed by historical trade volume in the affected computing-machinery lines and classifies the measure "Red" (trade-restrictive).

Brazil's Foreign Trade Chamber executive committee (GECEX) issued Resolution No. 730, signed 20 May 2025 and published in the Diário Oficial da União on 21 May 2025, removing 125 tariff-line codes from Ex-Tarifário (temporary import-duty exemption) coverage: 104 capital goods lines, 18 information-technology/telecommunications lines, and 3 automotive products classified as capital goods. The affected lines revert from preferential Ex-Tarifário rates to their standard MFN import duty, effective 20 July 2025, two months after publication. Global Trade Alert classifies the measure "Red" (trade-restrictive) and flags Austria, Belgium and Bulgaria among the trading partners most exposed by historical trade volume in the affected computing- machinery, special-purpose machinery and electric-motor lines.

Brazil's Foreign Trade Chamber executive committee (GECEX) issued Resolution No. 727, signed 20 May 2025, amending Annex I of Resolution No. 323 (4 April 2022) to modify import duties on 21 information- technology and telecommunications tariff lines. Twenty of the lines have their import duty temporarily eliminated (reduced to zero) and one line has its duty increased, effective 28 May 2025. The duty elimination on the 20 lines is temporary, with a stated revocation (reversion) date of 31 December 2025. Global Trade Alert classifies the measure "Red" and flags China, Germany and Indonesia among the trading partners most exposed by historical trade volume in the affected lines.

Brazil's Foreign Trade Chamber executive committee (GECEX) issued Resolution No. 732, dated 20 May 2025 and published in the Diário Oficial da União on 21 May 2025, amending Annexes II and VI of Resolução Gecex nº 272/2021 — the instrument that adapted Brazil's Common Mercosur Nomenclature (NCM) and Common External Tariff (TEC) to the 2022 Harmonized System revision. The amendment recomposes the TEC toward its full bound level for products on the IT/telecom (LEBIT) and capital-goods (BK) special-tariff exception lists, while carving out roughly 925 NCM codes across some 585 six-digit HS subheadings from the recomposition; secondary reporting describes the net effect as duty cuts on select data-processing and telephone equipment paired with duty increases across the broader excepted product set. Global Trade Alert classifies the measure as a "Red" (trade-restrictive) import-tariff intervention.

Tunisia's Finance Law for 2025 (Loi n° 2024-48, signed 9 December 2024, published in JORT n° 149 on 10 December 2024) institutes under Article 38 a one-year Contribution Conjoncturelle — a cyclical windfall-style fiscal levy — applicable to all enterprises subject to the standard 15% corporate income tax rate whose 2023 turnover exceeded 20 million dinars (excluding VAT). The contribution is set at 2% of the taxable profits for fiscal year 2025, with a minimum floor of 1,000 dinars, and is explicitly non-deductible from the corporate income tax base. The measure is a budget-financing instrument adopted in the context of the stalled IMF Extended Fund Facility programme (suspended since 2023) and constitutes the IPTM register's second Tunisia-issuer action, extending the LF-year-on-year Tunisian fiscal-policy arc established by LF2024 Art. 33.

In two consecutive sectoral notifications, Pakistan's Special Technology Zones Authority (STZA) — a federal body under the Cabinet Division — formally declared two additional Special Technology Zones. The Khanpur Industrial Project (Mumrial, Khanpur, District Haripur, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa; ~197 acres / 199,174 sq ft of existing and proposed infrastructure) was notified on 12 September 2024. The LEOS Technology Zone (Lehtrar Road, Nilore, Islamabad; 19.23 acres / 225,562 sq ft) was notified on 8 November 2024. Both zones operate under the Special Technology Zones Authority Act, 2021 incentive regime, which provides Zone Enterprises and Zone Developers a 10-year exemption from income tax, customs duty on capital-goods imports, and sales tax (under the Customs Act 1969, Income Tax Ordinance 2001 and Sales Tax Act 1990), together with eligibility for Special Forex Accounts under State Bank of Pakistan regulations (no requirement to convert USD inflows to PKR). The umbrella incentive window for the STZA regime runs until 30 June 2035, with each zone enterprise's 10-year clock starting from the date the zone developer certifies commercial operation.

The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) amended the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) by adding three Kaspersky entities to the Entity List under End-User Review Committee (ERC) determinations — AO Kaspersky Lab (Moscow), OOO Kaspersky Group (Moscow), and Kaspersky Labs Limited (London). All three are designated for cooperation with Russian military and intelligence authorities in support of Russian government cyber-intelligence objectives. Exports, reexports, and in-country transfers of all items subject to the EAR to the three entities now require a BIS licence reviewed under a policy of presumption of denial, with no licence exceptions available. The action is paired with a same-week Commerce ICTS final determination prohibiting Kaspersky cybersecurity and anti-virus software transactions in the United States.

On 21 March 2024 the PPP Governing Board, acting as the PPP Code IRR Committee, signed the Implementing Rules and Regulations of Republic Act No. 11966 — the Public-Private Partnership Code of the Philippines. The IRR was published in a newspaper of general circulation on 22 March 2024 and took effect on 6 April 2024, operationalising the parent law signed by President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. on 5 December 2023. The Code replaces the 1990 Build-Operate-Transfer Law (RA 6957, as amended by RA 7718) and the patchwork of agency-by-agency Joint Venture Guidelines as the single unified national framework governing all PPPs across the national government, GOCCs, state universities, and local government units — covering economic, social, and information-technology infrastructure. Key reforms include removing the prior cap on reasonable rate of return for unsolicited proposals, formalising joint-venture as a PPP modality for GOCCs, centralising contract awards under the PPP Center, and materially shortening approval timelines.

On 17 June 2023, the Prime Minister's Office issued a formal notification establishing the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC), an apex civil-military body chaired by the Prime Minister with the Chief of Army Staff and federal/ provincial leadership as members. SIFC operates as a "single window" to fast-track foreign direct investment in five strategic sectors: Defence Production, Agriculture and Livestock, Minerals, IT and Telecommunication, and Energy. The council is the principal vehicle through which Pakistan is channelling Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) sovereign capital — Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain — into headline projects including the Reko Diq copper-gold restart, Saudi/UAE minerals MoUs, and the 2025 Pakistan Minerals Investment Forum. SIFC received statutory backing on 18 August 2023 via the Board of Investment (Amendment) Act, 2023, which inserted Chapter II-A giving SIFC overriding authority over other laws.

China's State Council Tariff Commission published its annual "2023 Tariff Adjustment Plan" (税委会公告2022年第11号) on 28 December 2022, effective 1 January 2023. Alongside routine import-side changes (provisional-rate cancellations reverting some goods to MFN rates, and an eighth-step MFN cut on 62 information-technology products from 1 July 2023), the plan raises export tariffs on aluminum and aluminum alloy to support "transformation, upgrading and high-quality development" of the domestic industry. Global Trade Alert logs this export-tax increase as the "certainly harmful" intervention within the bundled state act; a separate import-tariff cut is logged as liberalising.

BIS finalized changes to the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) governing controls on cybersecurity items — primarily intrusion software, command-and-control platforms, and surveillance tools capable of disrupting or monitoring information systems without authorization. The final rule, effective May 26 2022, revises License Exception ACE (Authorized Cybersecurity Exports) originally established by an October 2021 interim rule and narrows end-user carve-outs for government end users in Country Group D:5 and A:6 destinations. Exports of affected ECCNs (4A005, 4D001, 4D004, 4E001, 5A001.j, 5B001, 5D001, 5E001) to Country Groups E:1 and E:2 remain prohibited; D:1 through D:5 government-end-user transactions require a license.

BIS published an interim rule on January 12, 2022 delaying the effective date of its October 21, 2021 cybersecurity items interim final rule by 45 days, from January 19, 2022 to March 7, 2022. The underlying October 2021 rule establishes new Export Control Classification Numbers (ECCNs) for cybersecurity items — including intrusion software, command-and-control platforms, and surveillance tools — and introduces License Exception ACE (Authorized Cybersecurity Exports) for national security and anti-terrorism purposes. The delay was granted after twelve public comments highlighted significant compliance challenges, with BIS acknowledging the need for additional time for industry to update procedures and for BIS to issue supplemental guidance before the controls took effect.

On November 4, 2021, BIS added four entities to the Entity List under a policy of denial: NSO Group and Candiru (Israel), Positive Technologies (Russia), and Computer Security Initiative Consultancy PTE (Singapore). NSO Group and Candiru were designated for supplying commercial spyware to foreign governments used to maliciously surveil government officials, journalists, activists, and academics; Positive Technologies and CSIC for trafficking cyber tools enabling unauthorized access to information systems. All four entities now require BIS licenses for any export, re-export, or in-country transfer of EAR-controlled items, with a presumption of denial.

BIS published an interim final rule on October 21, 2021 establishing new Export Control Classification Numbers (ECCNs 4A005, 4D004, 4E001.c, and 5A001.j) for intrusion software systems, command-and-control platforms, and IP network surveillance tools, implementing the Wassenaar Arrangement 2017 cybersecurity decisions into the Export Administration Regulations (EAR). The rule simultaneously created License Exception ACE (Authorized Cybersecurity Exports), codified at § 740.22, to authorize exports to most destinations while imposing licence requirements — or outright prohibitions — for sales to Country Groups E:1/E:2 governments and certain D-group government end-users. Carve-outs for vulnerability disclosure and cyber-incident-response activities were included to protect legitimate security research. The effective date was subsequently delayed from January 19, 2022 to March 7, 2022 by a separate interim rule (FR 2022-00448), and the rule was finalized with revisions on May 26, 2022 (FR 2022-11282).

The Bureau of Industry and Security amended the Export Administration Regulations by adding 34 entities under 43 entries to the Entity List, effective July 12, 2021. The largest cluster — 14 Chinese entities — comprises suppliers of surveillance infrastructure enabling the Chinese government's human-rights abuses in Xinjiang, including video analytics firms, network equipment makers, and geolocation platforms deployed in the Uyghur Region. Six Russian individuals and entities were added for participation in military procurement networks acquiring US-origin electronics and components in violation of the EAR. Additional listings cover Iran sanctions evaders (Canada, Lebanon), a UAE-based nuclear-proliferation facilitator, and one entity elevated from the Unverified List to the Entity List under China. All items subject to the EAR require a BIS licence to export, re-export, or transfer in-country to the listed parties, with a presumption-of-denial review policy.