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

The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026 (P.L. 119-60), signed into law on 18 December 2025, expands the Department of Defense's existing "covered materials" domestic- sourcing restriction (which already barred DoD contracting for SmCo/NdFeB magnets, tantalum and tungsten sourced from China, Russia, Iran or North Korea) to add gallium, germanium and molybdenum under Section 844. Restrictions on materials "melted or produced" in a covered nation take effect 31 December 2026, widening on 1 January 2027 to also cover materials "mined, refined, or separated" in a covered nation; the gallium/germanium additions specifically phase in on 18 December 2027. The same NDAA bundles two related supply-chain provisions: Section 867 gives DoD broader authority (contracts, grants, other-transaction agreements, equity-style investments, and anti-market-manipulation subsidies) to invest in the domestic industrial base for critical minerals, microelectronics, machine tools and other defense-relevant capacity, and Section 842 bars DoD from procuring advanced batteries whose cells or key components are owned, sourced, refined or produced by a foreign entity of concern, phased in 2028-2031.

President Peter Mutharika signed an executive order effective 21 October 2025 prohibiting the export of all raw, unprocessed minerals extracted in Malawi, covering uranium, rare earth elements, niobium, graphite, tantalum, bauxite, rutile, gold, copper, diamonds, heavy mineral sands, and all other minerals. Minerals that have been processed, refined, or value-added in Malawi are exempt. The order aligns with an announced National Mining Corporation to oversee mineral production and processing, and introduces fines and sanctions under Malawi law for violations.

After a comprehensive two-year mining ban (August 2023–April 2025), Wa State authorities formally opened new three-year licence applications for mining, processing, and prospecting in Man Maw in February 2025, with permits issued to operators from approximately April 2025. The restart regime imposes a 30% universal tax-in-kind on all tin concentrate exports plus an additional 5% first-batch concentrate levy to fund joint mine dewatering, materially re-pricing approximately 10% of global tin concentrate supply. Shipments recovered to ~1,300 tonnes contained tin per month by November–December 2025.

BIS published an interim final rule (FR Doc 2025-00711, 90 FR 4544-publication slot; companion to the AI Diffusion Framework signed three days earlier) revising the EAR to add explicit due-diligence procedures for advanced computing integrated circuits captured by ECCN 3A090. The rule (i) creates an Authorized IC Designer / Approved IC Packager regime so that foundries and OSATs can identify trustworthy customers via lists maintained by BIS, (ii) imposes new front-end-fabricator reporting requirements for any 3A090.a IC produced for an authorized IC designer to give the US government supply-chain visibility, and (iii) adjusts the scope of covered advanced-computing items. Effective 16 January 2025; compliance required from 31 January 2025; comment period extended to 14 March 2025. The rule was immediately followed by the 16 January Entity List additions (Sophgo et al.) targeting circumvention paths and was technically amended on 14 February 2025 to narrow the RS license requirement to ECCN 3A090.a only.

The U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) amended the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) by adding 36 entities under 41 entries to the Entity List, effective June 28, 2022. The entities — located across China, Lithuania, Pakistan, Russia, Singapore, the UAE, the United Kingdom, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam — were designated for acting contrary to U.S. national security or foreign policy interests. Key grounds include support for China's military modernization and AI-enabled surveillance programs, Pakistan-based proliferation concerns, and supply-chain facilitation for Russia amid the Ukraine invasion. The rule also revised eleven existing entries (Belarus, China, Russia, Slovakia) and corrected one entry (Pakistan).