The new Section 232 order sets minimum prices for polysilicon and solar components, but it looks like a test-run for the critical minerals deal Washington has been chasing since January.
Author Archives: PolicyTrader
Posted inThink Tank News
Lowy: Beyond green iron: what China’s steel transition means
China’s steel decarbonisation is likely to proceed through a combination of efficiency improvements, greater scrap use, and gradual electrification rather than a wholesale shift to hydrogen-based steelmaking, meaning Australian green iron demand will emerge more slowly and unevenly than anticipated.
Posted inThink Tank News
Atlantic Council: A visual guide to the new US tariff wall
The Trump administration’s post-IEEPA tariff regime is a fragmented patchwork of national security tariffs, forced labour investigations, exemptions, and bilateral deals that produces vastly different effective rates across trading partners.
Posted inTrade Policy
China answers Washington with drone curbs, sanctions on labor-audit firms
Beijing’s four-part package targets the firms that make US import enforcement work, and opens the first national security investigation in the history of China’s foreign trade law.
Posted inThink Tank News
Brookings: Tracking Trump’s tariffs and other trade actions
Since January 2025, President Trump has significantly raised tariffs on major US trading partners including Canada, Mexico, China, the EU and Japan, with rates shifting as trade deals are negotiated.
Posted inThink Tank News
PIIE: Global supply chains and the limits of US decoupling
US tariffs have failed to meaningfully reduce America’s dependence on Chinese goods because suppliers rerouted products through third countries, leaving Chinese value added in US imports largely intact.
Posted inThink Tank News
CSIS: The case for a North American trusted trade laboratory
North America’s inability to verify the true origins and inputs of goods crossing its borders — the ‘visibility gap’ — leaves the region defenceless against Chinese overcapacity that reroutes through third countries to evade tariffs.
Posted inThink Tank News
Brookings: Can America and South Korea strengthen economic ties?
Despite a strategically strong alliance, US-South Korea relations face recurring economic frictions over tariffs, digital trade, and market access that risk complicating broader cooperation on technology and investment.
Posted inThink Tank News
ASPI: How to win the battle for critical minerals
The US and its partners must pursue coordinated action across three fronts — commercial viability, technological independence, and allied coordination — to overcome China’s entrenched dominance in critical-minerals supply chains.
Posted inThink Tank News
Atlantic Council: Nepal and Bangladesh delay LDC graduation
Bangladesh and Nepal have wisely deferred LDC graduation to 2029, but the three-year extension will only matter if both countries convert diplomatic momentum into concrete trade agreements, transition financing, and domestic institutional reforms before preferences lapse.