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

China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on 26 December 2025 that it is imposing countermeasures under Articles 3, 4, 5, 6, 9 and 15 of the Law of the People's Republic of China on Countering Foreign Sanctions against 20 US defense-related companies and 10 senior executives, in response to the Trump administration's 18 December 2025 announcement of roughly $11.1bn in arms sales to Taiwan — the largest single US weapons package for the island to date. Measures freeze the named entities' assets within China, prohibit organizations and individuals in China from transacting or cooperating with them, and deny visas/entry to the named executives. This is a Foreign Ministry Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law designation, distinct in legal basis from MOFCOM's parallel Unreliable Entity List mechanism used in prior 2025 Taiwan-arms-sale tranches (e.g. the 9 April 2025 six-firm UEL listing).

India's Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways notified operational guidelines on 26 December 2025 for two paired shipbuilding subsidy schemes with a combined outlay of ₹44,700 crore (~USD 5.4bn). SBFAS (₹24,736 crore corpus) provides 15–25% per-vessel financial assistance tiered by vessel category, with milestone-linked disbursement and a 40% scrap-value credit for vessels broken at Indian yards. SbDS (₹19,989 crore outlay) funds greenfield shipbuilding clusters, brownfield-yard modernisation, and establishment of an India Ship Technology Centre. Both schemes are valid to 31 March 2036 with an in-principle extension to 2047, with applicability for shipbuilding contracts signed from 24 September 2025. On 7 January 2026 the guidelines were amended to include chemical tankers under SBFAS Category-1.

Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) and the Cabinet Office jointly published the Shipbuilding Revival Roadmap (造船業再生ロードマップ) on 26 December 2025, redefining shipbuilding as a "national strategic industry" within an All-Japan shipping-and-shipbuilding framework. The Roadmap targets doubling domestic shipbuilding capacity from ~9 million GT to 18 million GT by 2035 (re-capturing roughly 20% global market share) backed by a ¥1 trillion (~USD 6.4 bn) public-private investment commitment over three staged phases (2026-28 automation, 2029-31 facility expansion, 2032-34 dock-operation support), mandates consolidation of domestic shipbuilders into 1-3 groups by 2028, and is funded in its first three years by a ¥120 bn FY2025 supplementary budget enacted in December 2025.

On 23 December 2025 the Government of the Russian Federation, via Order No. 3959-r signed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, allocated more than RUB 1.3 billion (approx. USD 17 million) from the government's reserve fund to co-finance completion of four crab-catching vessels under construction at shipyards in the Far Eastern Federal District. The subsidy is split into four equal tranches of RUB 340 million to fishing companies (including LLC "TRK", LLC "Voskhod", LLC "Antey Sever" and LLC "Sever") holding investment-quota allocations for crab fishing, under a programme that ties quota rights to a domestic shipbuilding commitment. The order is part of a broader 2024-2026 investment-quota vessel programme covering 13 crab-catching vessels and roughly RUB 6.4 billion in cumulative state support.

Korea's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) announced the K-Shipbuilding Strategy for Next-Generation Market Dominance on 15 November 2025 at the emergency economy ministerial meeting and exports-and-investment promotion meeting. The strategy deploys KRW 710 billion (~USD 534 million) by 2028 across three policy directions: (1) technology super-gap via autonomous self-navigating vessels, zero-emission ships (LNG/ammonia/hydrogen tri-fuel), and AI-driven design and smart shipbuilding; (2) manufacturing upgrade through smart shipyard investment, robotics distribution, and improved foreign-manpower visa pathways; and (3) legal infrastructure including a new dedicated "Promotion of Industrialization and Technological Innovation of the Next-Generation Shipbuilding Industry" Act. Korea's overarching target is to capture ≥80% of the next-generation shipbuilding market, explicitly in competition with China's state-subsidised fleet expansion.

On 13 November 2025, the United States and the Republic of Korea released a Joint Fact Sheet reaffirming the July 2025 announcement of the Korea Strategic Trade and Investment Deal — the first standalone US-Korea trade-and-investment agreement since the 2012 KORUS FTA. USTR issued the implementing Federal Register notice (90 FR 55964, Notice 2025-21940) on 3 December 2025, effective 4 December 2025, with retroactive HTSUS application to 1 November 2025 for autos and auto parts and to 14 November 2025 for reciprocal-tariff goods, timber, lumber, derivatives, and certain aircraft and aircraft parts. On the US tariff side: (i) the country-specific IEEPA reciprocal tariff on Korean originating goods is set at the higher of the KORUS FTA / MFN rate or 15% (parallel to the Japan and EU framework deals); (ii) the Section 232 tariffs on autos, auto parts, timber, lumber and wood derivatives are reduced to 15% (no incremental duty when the pre-existing KORUS/MFN rate already meets or exceeds 15%); (iii) Korean exports of qualifying goods on the Potential Tariff Adjustments for Aligned Partners (PTAAP) list are exempt from reciprocal tariffs (covering generic pharmaceuticals and unavailable natural resources); (iv) Section 232 pharmaceuticals capped at 15%; semiconductors granted MFN-style "no less favourable" treatment in any future sectoral deal. On the investment side, Korea commits to a USD 350bn package: USD 150bn into US shipbuilding ("Approved Investments") plus USD 200bn into US strategic industries via a separate Strategic Investments MOU, with annual currency-funding cap of USD 20bn. Non-tariff commitments include streamlined US biotech approvals on the Korean side, US meat and cheese market access, fair treatment for US digital services, removal of Korea's 50,000-unit cap on US vehicles meeting FMVSS, and joint WTO support for the moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions.

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.

China's Ministry of Transport (Water Transport Bureau, document 交办水〔2025〕59号), acting under the PRC International Maritime Transport Regulations, issued a measure on 10 October 2025 imposing escalating special port service fees on U.S.-linked vessels calling at Chinese ports from 14 October 2025. Fees apply at the first Chinese port of call per voyage to (i) U.S.-owned, (ii) U.S.-operated, (iii) ≥25% U.S.-equity, (iv) U.S.-flagged, or (v) U.S.-built vessels, charged per net ton on a stepped schedule (¥400/NT from 14 Oct 2025, ¥640/NT from 17 Apr 2026, ¥880/NT from 17 Apr 2027, ¥1,120/NT from 17 Apr 2028) and capped at five voyages per vessel per year. The measure is the first MOT-issued trade-remedy instrument in the IPTM register and the direct, named-target mirror response to USTR's 17 April 2025 Section 301 maritime Notice of Action. Both regimes were mutually suspended for one year from 10 November 2025 through 9 November 2026 following the 30 October 2025 Trump-Xi Busan meeting.

Brazil's national development bank BNDES is financing a BRL 3.7 billion (~USD 693 million) loan, drawn from the Fundo da Marinha Mercante (Merchant Marine Fund), to LHG Logística — the logistics arm of LHG Mining (Grupo J&F) — to build a fleet of 400 barges and 15 pushboats for transporting iron ore and manganese by inland waterway from Corumbá (Mato Grosso do Sul) roughly 2,500 km via the Paraguai/Paraná river system to the Nueva Palmira transshipment terminal in Uruguay. The vessels are being built over four years at six Brazilian shipyards; BNDES estimates the project lifts the national inland-cargo fleet by 16% and generates about 5,500 direct and indirect jobs, with 87% of funds applied in Brazil's North and Northeast regions.

On 26 September 2025, Japan's Minister of Finance Katsunobu Kato announced the establishment of the Japan Strategic Investment Facility, a JBIC-administered financing vehicle operationalising the USD 550bn investment pledge from the July 2025 US-Japan tariff and investment agreement. The facility launched 1 October 2025 and runs through March 2029, supporting the overseas expansion of Japanese companies across nine economic-security sectors: semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, steel, shipbuilding, critical minerals, aviation, energy, automobiles, and AI/quantum technology. Funding draws on three sources — dollar-denominated JBIC bonds, yen-denominated Japanese government loans to JBIC, and a "supplemental" transfer from Japan's USD 1.324tn foreign-currency reserves — with private-sector loans and NEXI-backed loan guarantees supplementing JBIC's own financing.

China's Ministry of Commerce issued Announcement No. 51 of 2025 on 25 September 2025, adding three US entities — Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. (NYSE: HII, the largest US military shipbuilder), Planate Management Group, and Global Dimensions LLC — to China's Export Control List (出口管制 管控名单), effective the same day. The listing prohibits Chinese exporters from supplying dual-use items to the three firms and requires any ongoing related export activity to cease immediately. MOFCOM cited the firms' "military-technical cooperation with China's Taiwan region" as the trigger, issued in parallel with a same-day Unreliable Entity List designation of three other US firms (Saronic Technologies, Aerkomm, Oceaneering International).

India's Union Cabinet, chaired by PM Narendra Modi, approved a ₹25,000 crore ($3bn) Maritime Development Fund (MDF) on 24 September 2025 as part of the broader ₹69,725 crore shipbuilding and maritime package. The MDF comprises a ₹20,000 crore Maritime Investment Fund (MIF) — a blended-finance Category-I Alternative Investment Fund with the Government of India contributing up to 49% of capital at concessional rates and the remaining 51% raised from ports and private/commercial investors — and a ₹5,000 crore Interest Incentivization Fund (IIF) that subsidises loan interest costs for shipyards and shipowners to lower the effective cost of debt. The fund is designed to run through FY 2026-36 and is projected to catalyse up to ₹1.5 lakh crore (~$18bn) in maritime-sector investment by 2030, covering shipbuilding, ship repair, ports, inland waterways, coastal shipping and tonnage-capacity expansion.

Brazil's national development bank BNDES signed a BRL 2.5 billion (~USD 471.6 million) financing contract with Starnav Serviços Marítimos on 22 September 2025 in Itajaí (Santa Catarina), drawing on the Merchant Marine Fund (Fundo da Marinha Mercante, FMM). The loan covers just over 88% of the ~BRL 2.9 billion cost of eight hybrid (diesel-electric with battery banks) multipurpose offshore support vessels — four Platform Supply Vessels (PSV) and four Oil Spill Recovery Vessels (OSRV), each 5,500 dwt — to be built at the Detroit Brasil shipyard in Itajaí. The vessels will be chartered to state oil company Petrobras under 12-year contracts to support offshore oil and gas production, and the project is projected to generate 1,400 direct and 6,300 indirect jobs. The announcement was part of a wider BRL 3.3 billion BNDES package for Santa Catarina covering naval, highway and agroindustry financing.

On 8 September 2025, the UK Ministry of Defence published the Defence Industrial Strategy 2025 — "Making Defence an Engine for Growth" (CP 1388) — the first comprehensive cabinet-level UK defence industrial strategy in over a decade and the sector plan for Defence under the UK Modern Industrial Strategy umbrella (IS-8). The strategy was published alongside the Strategic Defence Review 2025 and operationalises the largest sustained defence- spending increase since the Cold War (rising to 2.6% of GDP by 2027 with ambition to 3% in the next Parliament). It defines six priority outcomes (growth, backing UK businesses, defence innovation, resilient industrial base, procurement transformation, enduring partnerships); establishes UK Defence Innovation (UKDI) within the MOD with a ringfenced £400m budget to accelerate dual-use technology; identifies priority defence capabilities (combat air, complex weapons, directed-energy weapons, next- generation land and maritime systems) plus dual-use sub-sectors (quantum, drones/autonomy, space, AI, cyber, engineering biology, advanced connectivity); and flags resilience priorities in steel, construction, energetic materials, batteries, semiconductors and rare earths.

Brazil's national development bank BNDES approved a BRL 186.1 million (~USD 33.6 million) financing operation for Bram Offshore Transportes Marítimos Ltda, part of the US Edison Chouest Offshore group and the largest offshore-support vessel operator in Brazil. The loan, drawn from the Merchant Marine Fund (Fundo da Marinha Mercante, FMM), covers 90% of a BRL 206.8 million project to repair, modernise and convert 15 support vessels — including hybrid-propulsion retrofits (battery installation) on at least one Petrobras-chartered vessel — at the Navship shipyard in Navegantes, Santa Catarina. The same BNDES announcement included a separate BRL 53.2 million FMM loan to Estaleiro Navship Ltda to resume pandemic-halted shipyard works at Porto do Açu (São João da Barra, RJ).

Brazil's national development bank BNDES approved a BRL 345 million financing package, drawn from the Merchant Marine Fund (Fundo da Marinha Mercante, FMM), for Hermasa Navegação da Amazônia to build 60 river barges and 2 azimuth-propulsion towboats. BNDES frames the deal as the FMM's first allocation specifically targeted at decarbonisation, with the new fleet projected to cut annual CO2 emissions by up to 88.4% via fewer trips and a potential diesel-to-biodiesel switch on the towboats. The vessels will operate on the Madeira-Amazon river corridor in Brazil's North region, adding roughly 35% cargo capacity and an estimated 355 jobs.

On 22 July 2025 the Government of Quebec, via Investissement Québec, announced a CAD 145 million (~USD 106 million) capital injection into Groupe Océan, a Quebec-based shipbuilding, harbour-towing and dredging firm. The package comprises CAD 75 million in preferred shares from the Quebec government plus CAD 34 million from the Fund for the Growth of Quebec Businesses and CAD 36 million from Investissement Québec's own equity funds. The stated purpose is to expand Groupe Océan's shipyards (Quebec City and L'Isle-aux-Coudres), preserve its head office and ~1,120 jobs in Quebec, and position the firm to win work under Canada's federal National Shipbuilding Strategy.

China's Ministry of Commerce issued Announcement No. 35 of 2025 on 9 July 2025, adding 8 Taiwan-based entities to its Dual-Use Items Export Control List under the Export Control Law and the Regulations on Export Control of Dual-Use Items. The listed firms — spanning aerospace/aviation, unmanned systems, and shipbuilding — are barred from receiving dual-use item exports from China; ongoing export activity to them must cease immediately, with exceptions only via case-by-case MOFCOM approval. The measure took effect the same day it was published.

Export Finance Australia (EFA), the Australian Government's export credit agency, credit-approved a loan facility of up to USD 150 million (AUD ~229.3 million) on 2025-06-27 to support Austal Limited's capital expansion at its Mobile, Alabama shipyard. The facility funds a new assembly hall, waterfront improvements, and a new ship lift system as part of a broader USD 1.2 billion expansion program tied to Austal's US Navy and US Coast Guard shipbuilding contracts and its role in the submarine industrial base. The loan documentation was signed subject to conditions precedent, with Austal executing a USD 100 million tranche of the facility shortly after.

The Canada Infrastructure Bank, a federal Crown corporation, committed a CAD 1 billion (approx. USD 734.9 million) below-market-rate credit facility to BC Ferries, split into a CAD 690 million tranche for four new hybrid "Major Vessels" and a CAD 310 million tranche for terminal electrification infrastructure. The financing replaces vessels between 48 and 61 years old and is projected to save BC Ferries roughly CAD 650 million in interest costs over the loan term versus private-market financing. The vessel-construction contract was separately awarded to China Merchants Industry Weihai Shipyards (CMI Weihai), a Chinese state-owned shipbuilder, making this a case of Canadian federal concessional financing underwriting offshore (Chinese) vessel procurement rather than domestic shipbuilding capacity.

On 25 June 2025 the Government of Ontario announced the CAD 15 million (~USD 11 million) Ontario Shipbuilding Grant Program (OSGP), part of a wider CAD 215 million package to support the province's shipbuilding and marine sector. OSGP offers non-repayable grants covering up to 50% of eligible project costs for skills training, infrastructure improvements, and machinery/equipment purchases at Ontario shipyards. The stated purpose is to expand provincial shipbuilding capacity in support of Canada's National Shipbuilding Strategy and to bolster Ontario manufacturers facing US tariffs and economic uncertainty; applications opened in late July 2025 via Transfer Payment Ontario, with a first intake running July-September 2025.

The UK Trade Remedies Authority initiated antidumping investigation AD0071 on 6 June 2025 into hot-rolled steel plate (flat-rolled products of iron or non-alloy steel, 600mm+ width, hot-rolled, not clad/plated/coated, not in coils, 4.75mm+ thickness) originating in South Korea, following an application by UK producer Spartan UK Ltd. The TRA found South Korean imports grew from ~14,000 tonnes in 2021 to over 40,000 tonnes the following year. In April 2026 the TRA published its Statement of Essential Facts proposing duties of 7.04%-22.27% on narrow plates (600mm-2500mm width) — its preferred option — or 5.98%-24.28% if applied to the full scope, after an Economic Interest Test found full-scope duties would harm UK downstream sectors (renewable energy, shipbuilding, defence) reliant on wider-plate imports.

The UK Ministry of Defence announced a £5 billion technology investment package to accelerate domestic defence innovation, split between more than £4 billion (including over £2 billion in new funding) for autonomous systems and nearly £1 billion this Parliament for directed-energy weapons (DEW). The package funds acceleration of the DragonFire high-power laser toward fielding on Royal Navy Type 45 destroyers from 2027, establishment of a new Drone Centre to speed deployment of small uncrewed air systems informed by lessons from Ukraine, and is projected to create 300 skilled jobs on top of 200 already supported by DEW work. The announcement followed the government's Strategic Defence Review published the same day, which recommends UK forces adopt unmanned and autonomous systems at scale over the next five years.

Bank Pembangunan Malaysia Berhad (BPMB) and Export-Import Bank of Malaysia Berhad (EXIM Bank), both wholly state-owned development finance institutions under the BPMB Group, jointly announced on 2025-05-26 a RM700 million (approximately USD 166 million) financing package for Duta Marine Sdn Bhd, a Bumiputera-owned offshore marine services company. The facility comprises RM555 million from BPMB and USD 37 million in Islamic financing from EXIM Bank, funding the acquisition, conversion, refurbishment and mobilisation of an oil tanker into a floating storage and offloading (FSO) vessel — FSO Permata Dulang — to replace the ageing FSO Puteri Dulang serving Malaysia's Dulang oil field under a 10+5 year charter with Petronas Carigali.

Senators Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and Todd Young (R-IN) introduced S.1541 on 30 April 2025 and Representatives John Garamendi (D-CA) and Trent Kelly (R-MS) introduced the companion H.R.3151 on 1 May 2025 — the Shipbuilding and Harbor Infrastructure for Prosperity and Security for America (SHIPS for America) Act. The bill sets a national goal of 250 US-flag commercial vessels within 10 years via a Strategic Commercial Fleet Program, establishes a Maritime Security Trust Fund (US $50 million per year FY2026-2035), creates a 25 % investment tax credit for qualified shipyard capital expenditures, and mandates cargo-preference requirements (100 % of US-government cargo; 10 % of China-origin imports) on US-flag vessels. Status as of 2026-05-13: introduced in both chambers; not enacted (GovTrack enactment probability <3 %).

USTR concluded its Section 301 investigation (initiated 17 April 2024) into China's targeting of the maritime, logistics, and shipbuilding sectors for dominance and on 17 April 2025 issued a Notice of Action imposing tiered port-entry service fees on Chinese-owned, -operated, and Chinese-built vessels arriving at U.S. ports starting 14 October 2025 (USD 50/net ton escalating to USD 80/NT in Apr 2026, USD 110/NT in Apr 2027, and USD 140/NT in Apr 2028; capped at 5 charges per vessel per year). The action also proposed a 100% tariff on China-built or China-component ship-to-shore cranes and additional 20-100% tariffs on China-origin shipping containers, truck chassis, and chassis parts. The entire action was subsequently suspended for one year (10 Nov 2025 through 9 Nov 2026) by USTR Modification Notice (FR 2025-19873) at presidential direction following the 1 Nov 2025 Trump-Xi trade deal.

President Trump signed Executive Order 14269 on 9 April 2025 (FR publication 15 April 2025), launching the first whole-of-government US shipbuilding and maritime industrial-policy instrument since the 1996 Maritime Security Program. The order directs development of an America's Maritime Action Plan (MAP) under APNSA leadership within 210 days (released 13 February 2026) and tasks DoD, DoT, DHS, Commerce, USTR, and OMB with a sequenced set of reviews covering deregulation of the domestic commercial maritime fleet, expansion of the Maritime Industrial Base, mariner workforce development, Maritime Prosperity Zones, and Office of Strategic Capital loan deployment to commercial shipyards. The EO is the cross-government industrial-policy umbrella; the simultaneously-developed USTR Section 301 China Maritime/Logistics/Shipbuilding action (filed 17 April 2025) is the China-specific tariff-track instrument.